.  UU 


eynell 


LIBRARY 

University  of 

California 

Irvine 


Ptf 


JOHN    RUSKIN 


BY 

X^L  C.  7T 
MRS.   MEYNELL 


NEW  YORK 

DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY 
1900 


Copyright,  1900, 
BY  I)oni>,  MKAD  AND  COMPANY. 


Contents 


PAGE 


I.    INTRODUCTION i 

II.  MODERN  PAINTERS  (FIRST  VOLUME)    ....  9 

III.  MODERN  PAINTERS  (SECOND  VOLUME)      ...  36 

IV.  MODERN  PAINTERS  (THIRD  AND  FOURTH  VOL- 

UMES)    46 

V.  MODERN  PAINTERS  (FIFTH  VOLUME)    ....  64 

VI.  THE  SEVEN  LAMPS  OF  ARCHITECTURE      ...  79 

VII.     THE  STONES  OF  VENICE 98 

VIII.    PRE-RAPHAELITISM 117 

IX.  LECTURES  ON  ARCHITECTURE  AND  PAINTING     .  121 

X.     ELEMENTS  OF  DRAWING 125 

XI.     THE  POLITICAL  ECONOMY  OF  ART 129 

XII.     THE  Two  PATHS 133 

XIII.  UNTO  THIS  LAST 145 

XIV.  SESAME. AND  LILIES 158 

XV.     THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE 171 

XVI.  TIME  AND  TIDE  BY  WEARE  AND  TYNE   .    .     .  175 

XVII.     THE  QUEEN  OF  THE  AIR 181 

XVIII.     LECTURES  ON  ART 186 

XIX.    ARATRA  PENTELICI 200 

XX.    THE  EAGLE'S  NEST 205 

XXI.     ARIADNE  FLORENTINA 217 

XXII.    VAL  D'ARNO 225 

XXIII.  DEUCALION 233 

XXIV.  PROSERPINA 240 

XXV.     GUIDE  BOOKS 247 

XXVI.     FORS  CLAVIGERA 259 

XXVII.     PR^TERITA 273 

CHRONOLOGY 283 

v 


Modern  English  Writers 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD         .         .         .  Professor  SAINTSBURY. 

R.  L.  STEVENSON  .  L.  COPE  CORNFORD. 

JOHN  RUSKIN Mrs.  MEYNELL. 

TENNYSON         .....  ANDREW  LANG. 

GEORGE  ELIOT         ....  SIDNEY  LEE. 

BROWNING C.  H.  HERFORD. 

FROUDE JOHN  OLIVER  HOBBES. 

HUXLEY EDWARD  CLODD. 

THACKERAY CHARLES  WHIBLEY. 

DICKENS W.  E.  HENLEY. 

*„*  Other  Volumes  -will  be  announced  in  due  course. 


DEDICATED  TO 

LIEUT.-GENERAL  SIR  W.  F.  BUTLER,  K.C.B. 

"  A  British  Officer  who  is  singularly  of  one  mind 
with  me  on  matters  regarding  the  nation's  honour" 

—PREFACE  TO  RUSKIN'S  "  BIBLE  OF  AMIENS." 


JOHN  RUSKIN 

CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTION 

JOHN  RUSKIN'S  life  was  not  only  centred,  but 
limited,  by  the  places  where  he  was  born  and  taught, 
and  by  the  things  he  loved.  The  London  suburb  and 
the  English  lake-side  for  his  homes,  Oxford  for  his 
place  first  of  study  and  then  of  teaching,  usually  one 
beaten  road  by  France,  Switzerland,  and  Italy  for  his 
annual  journeys — these  closed  the  scene  of  his  dwell- 
ings and  travellings.  There  was  a  water-colour 
drawing  by  his  father  that  interested  him  when  he  was 
a  little  boy  in  muslin  and  a  sash  (as  Northcote 
painted  him,  with  his  own  chosen  "  blue  hills  "  for  a 
background),  and  this  drawing  hung  over  his  bed  when 
he  died ;  the  evenings  of  his  last  days  were  passed  in 
the  chair  wherein  he  preached  in  play  a  sermon  be- 
fore he  could  well  pronounce  it.  The  nursery  lessons 
and  the  household  ways  of  the  home  on  Herne  Hill 
partly  remained  with  him,  reverend  and  unquestion- 
able, to  his  last  day.  And  yet  the  student  of  the 
work  done  in  this  quiet  life  of  repetitions  is  somewhat 
shaken  from  the  steadfastness  of  study  by  two  things 
— multitude  and  movement.  The  multitude  is  in  the 


2  JOHN    RUSKIN 

thoughts  of  this  great  and  original  mind,  and  the 
movement  is  the  world's.  Ruskin's  enormous  work 
has  never  had  steady  auditors  or  spectators  :  it  may  be 
likened  to  a  sidereal  sky  beheld  from  an  earth  upon 
the  wing.  Many,  innumerable,  are  the  points  that 
seem  to  shift  and  journey,  to  the  shifting  eye.  Partly 
it  was  he  himself  who  altered  his  readers  ;  and  partly 
they  changed  with  the  long  change  of  a  nation ;  and 
partly  they  altered  with  successive  and  recurrent 
moods.  John  Ruskin  wrote  first  for  his  contem- 
poraries, young  men ;  fifty  years  later  he  wrote  for 
the  same  readers  fifty  years  older,  as  well  as  for  their 
sons.  And  hardly  has  a  mob  of  Shakespeare's  shown 
more  sudden,  unanimous,  or  clamorous  versions  and 
reversions  of  opinion  than  those  that  have  acclaimed 
and  rejected,  derided  and  divided,  his  work,  once  to 
ban  and  bless,  and  a  second  time  to  bless  and  ban. 

Political  economy  in  1860  had  but  one  orthodoxy, 
which  was  that  of  "Manchester";  scientifically,  it 
held  competition  in  production  and  in  distribution, 
with  the  removal  (as  far  as  was  possible  to  coherent 
human  society)  of  all  intervention  of  explicit  social 
legislation,  to  be  favourable  to  the  wealth  of  nations ; 
and  ethically  it  held  that  if  only  the  world  would 
leave  opposing  egoisms  absolutely  free,  and  would  give 
self-interest  the  opportunity  of  perfection,  a  violent, 
hostile,  mechanical  equity  and  justice  would  come  to 
pass.  Only  let  men  resolve  never  to  relax  or  cede 
for  the  sake  of  forbearance  or  compassion,  and  the 
Manchester  system  would  be  found  to  work  for  good. 
In  1860  it  was  much  in  favour  of  this  doctrine  that 


INTRODUCTION.  3 

itself  and  all  its  workings  were  alike  unbeautiful  to 
mind  and  eye.  Men  might  regret  the  vanishing 
beauty  of  the  world,  but  they  were  convinced  that  it 
was  the  ugly  thing  that  was  "useful,"  and  that,  as  it 
did  not  attract,  it  would  not  deceive.  Before  the  clos- 
ing of  the  century  all  men  changed  their  mind.  But 
when  Ruskin  warned  them  that  scientifically  their 
"  orthodox  "  economy  made  for  an  intolerable  poverty, 
that  ethically  it  aimed  at  making  men  less  human,  and 
that  practically  it  could  never,  while  man  was  no  less 
than  man,  have  the  entire  and  universal  freedom  of 
action  upon  which  its  hope  of  ultimate  justice  de- 
pended ;  when  he  recommended  a  more  organic  and 
less  mechanical  equity — he  was  hooted  to  silence. 

Ruskin  first  commended  the  rejoining  together  of 
art  and  handicraft,  put  asunder  in  the  decline  of  the 
"  Renaissance " ;  and  for  this  too  he  was  generally 
derided,  because  men  were  sure  that  the  ugly  thing 
was  the  useful  and  the  comfortable.  John  Ruskin 
would  show  them  that  it  was  neither  of  these,  but 
they  would  have  it  that  he  was  showing  them  merely 
that  it  was  ugly.  That  is,  he  was  accused  of  teach- 
ing sentimentality  in  public  economy  and  in  art, 
whereas  his  teaching  dealt  with  human  character  and 
ultimate  utility. 

But  the  moving  world  has  rejected  his  teaching 
more  violently  after  fifty  years,  in  two  things  more 
momentous  than  the  rest :  it  has  gone  further  in  that 
enquiry  as  to  the  origin  of  the  ideas  of  moral  good 
and  evil  against  which  Ruskin  warned  it  in  the  words 
of  Carlyle ;  and  it  has  multiplied  its  luxuries.  By 


4  JOHN    RUSKIN 

these  two  actions  it  has  effectually  rejected  the  teach- 
ing of  Ruskin. 

"  The  moving  world  "  : — assuredly  this  great 
thinker  gave  years  of  thought  to  the  discovery  of 
moral  causes  for  the  enormous  losses  of  mankind,  and 
did  not  sufficiently  confess  the  obscure  motive  power 
of  change.  Byzantine  architecture  was  overcome  by 
Gothic,  not  only  because  Gothic  was  strongly  north- 
western, but  because  it  was  new ;  Gothic  was  sup- 
planted by  the  Renaissance,  not  only  because  Gothic 
was  enfeebled,  but  because  the  Renaissance  was  new. 
He  saw  the  beauty  of  the  hour  with  eyes  and  heart  so 
full  of  felicity  that  he  cried,  "  Stay,  thou  art  so  fair !  " 
It  never  stayed,  passing  by  the  law — but  how  shall  we 
dare  to  call  that  a  law  whereof  we  know  not  the 
cause,  the  end,  or  the  sanctions  ?  Let  us  rather,  ig- 
norant yet  vigilant,  call  it  the  custom — of  the  uni- 
verse. 

John  Ruskin  himself  has  told  us  his  life  in  exquisite 
detail.  He  underwent  in  childhood  a  strict  discipline, 
common  in  those  times,  had  no  toys,  was  "  whipped," 
was  compelled  to  a  self-denial  that  he  perceived  his 
elders  did  not  practise  upon  themselves.  It  was  the 
asceticism  of  the  day,  reserved  for  the  innocent. 
Charles  Dickens  did  more  than  any  man  to  make  the 
elderly  ashamed  of  it.  Raskin's  mother  kept  the 
training  of  the  child  in  her  own  hands,  and  subjected 
him  and  herself  to  a  hardly  credible  humiliation  by 
the  reading  aloud,  in  alternate  verses,  of  the  whole 
Bible,  Lcvitical  Law  and  all,  beginning  again  at 
Genesis  when  the  Apocalypse  was  finished.  She  was 


INTRODUCTION  5 

her  husband's  senior,  and,  like  him,  of  the  Evangelical 
sect.  She  dedicated  this  her  only  child  "to  the 
Lord  "  before  his  birth,  and  when  his  genius  appeared 
hoped  he  would  be  a  bishop.  He  obeyed  her,  tended 
and  served  her,  till  at  ninety  years  old  she  died. 

John  Ruskin's  father  was  a  Scottish  wine-merchant, 
well  educated  and  liberally  interested  in  the  arts.  He 
married  his  first  cousin,  daughter  of  an  inn-keeper  at 
Croydon,  prospered  greatly  in  trade  by  his  partnership 
with  Telford  and  Domecq,  and  rose  in  the  world.  His 
sister  was  married  to  a  tanner  at  Perth ;  his  wife's 
sister  to  a  baker  at  Croydon.  His  son,  born  at  54 
Hunter  Street,  Brunswick  Square,  on  February  8, 1819, 
took  his  first  little  journeys  on  his  visits  to  these  aunts. 
The  child  remembered  the  street  home,  but  it  was  in 
his  Herne  Hill  home  and  in  the  Herne  Hill  garden  that 
he  became  possessed  of  the  antiquities  of  childhood. 

The  boy  learnt,  in  his  companionship  with  his  father 
and  mother,  to  love  Scott,  Rogers,  and  Byron,  and  he 
remained  nobly  docile  to  the  admirations  of  his  dear 
elders.  Otherwise,  one  should  have  needed  to  quote 
some  phrase  of  his  own  to  define  the  feebleness  of  the 
Italy )  the  cold  corruption  of  heart  of  Don  Juan,  the 
inventory  of  nature's  beauties  versified  by  Scott.  Rus- 
kin  was  impulsive  ;  sometimes  he  loved  a  thing  first 
seen  more  than  he  was  to  love  it  later  ;  but  generally  he 
loved  the  customs  of  his  sweet  childhood.  He  read 
with  a  tutor — a  nonconformist  minister,  Dr.  Andrews, 
the  father  of  the  lady  who  became  Coventry  Patmore's 
first  wife  ;  matriculated  at  Christ  Church,  Oxford,  in 
1836,  where  he  won  theNewdigate  prize  (Sahette  and 


6  JOHN    RUSKIN 

Eltphanta  the  subject)  in  1839,  became  Honorary 
Student  of  Christ  Church  and  Honorary  Fellow  of 
Corpus  Christi,  and  Slade  Professor  (Chair  of  Fine 
Arts  founded  by  Felix  Slade)  in  1870,  to  be  three 
times  re-elected.  His  boyish  education  had  been 
furthered  by  annual  journeys  with  his  father  and  mother, 
first  in  Britain,  on  wine-selling  business,  and  then 
abroad,  always  in  a  travelling  carriage.  The  three  used 
to  set  out  in  May  of  all  these  years ;  and  the  last 
journey  was  in  1859,  in  Germany.  Early  in  his  teens 
the  boy  fell  in  love  with  the  daughter  of  his  father's 
partner,  Mr.  Domecq,  and  suffered  a  decline  of  health 
in  his  disappointment.  But  the  friendship  with  Turner 
(if  that  could  be  called  a  friendship  which  seemed  to 
have  such  strange  reserves)  was  the  central  fact  of  his 
life  as  a  young  man. 

The  little  family  took  up  its  abode  in  a  larger  and 
more  worldly  house,  163  Denmark  Hill,  in  1843.  I" 
1848  Ruskin  married,  most  unfortunately;  his  wife 
left  him  a  few  years  later,  the  marriage  was  legally 
annulled,  and  he  lived  again,  as  though  he  were  a  boy, 
with  his  parents.  More  than  twenty  years  later  a 
lady  who  had  been  his  girlish  disciple  and  whom  he 
had  long  loved,  but  who  seemed  unable  to  decide  for 
or  against  a  marriage  with  him,  died  estranged. 

This  solitary  life  was  consoled  during  all  its  middle 
and  later  terms  by  the  affection  of  his  cousin,  Mrs. 
Arthur  Severn,  who  had  lived  with  his  mother  in  her 
widowhood,  and  bore  him  company,  with  her  husband 
and  children,  until  his  death  in  his  home  at  Brant- 
wood,  C'oniston,  on  the  loth  of  January,  1900. 


INTRODUCTION  7 

John  Ruskin  had  been  a  writer  from  his  babyhood. 
The  first  expectation  was  of  the  poetic  genius,  but  his 
poems  were  never  more  than  mediocre.  His  prose 
asserted  itself  quickly,  for  he  was  only  twenty-four 
when  the  first  volume  of  Modern  Painters  was  pub- 
lished. His  renunciation  of  the  sectarian  religion  of 
his  parents  will  be  told  further  on.  He  was  always 
essentially  religious,  but  he  passed,  during  the  later 
maturity  of  his  mind,  through  some  years  of  doubt  as 
to  authoritative  doctrine,  returning  to  definite  beliefs  in 
course  of  time.  His  Oxford  and  other  series  of  lec- 
tures, and  the  undertaking  of  the  St.  George's  Com- 
pany, will  be  touched  upon  in  this  volume  in  their 
place  amongst  his  works.  Of  those  works  I  have 
attempted  the  analysis,  slight  and  brief,  but  essential, 
with  quotations  from  beautiful  and  indispensable  pages. 
I  intend  the  following  essay  to  be  principally  a  hand- 
book of  Ruskin. 

In  his  central  or  later-central  years  John  Ruskin  was 
a  thin  and  rather  tall  man,  very  English  (Scottish  in 
fact,  but  I  mean  to  indicate  the  physique  that  looks 
conspicuous  on  the  Continent),  active  and  light,  with 
sloping  shoulders ;  he  had  a  small  face  with  large 
features,  the  eyebrows,  nose,  and  under-lip  prominent ; 
his  eyes  were  blue,  and  the  blue  tie — by  the  peculiar 
property  of  a  strong  blue  to  increase  a  neighbouring 
lesser  blue,  instead  of  quenching  it — made  them  look 
the  bluest  of  all  blue  eyes.  He  had  the  r  in  the  throat, 
the  r  of  the  Parisians,  which  gives  a  certain  weakness 
to  English  speech ;  and  in  lecturing  he  had  a  rather 
clerical  inflexion.  He  was  a  disciple  (as  in  his  rela- 


8  JOHN    RUSKIN 

tion  to  Carlyle  and  later  to  Professor  Norton),  a  mas- 
ter, a  pastor,  a  chivalrous  servant  to  the  young  and 
weak,  but  too  anxious,  too  lofty,  to  be  in  the  equal 
sense  a  friend. 

He  was  broken  by  sorrow  long  before  he  died.  His 
purposes  had  been,  for  the  time,  defeated.  His  final 
renunciation  of  the  Slade  Professorship  (he  had  resigned 
it  before  for  one  interval  in  a  time  of  deep  grief  )  was 
due  to  the  vote  passed  to  establish  a  physiological 
laboratory  (to  establish,  that  is,  vivisection)  at  the 
museum  at  Oxford ;  he  took  this  for  a  sign  of  the 
contradiction  of  the  world.  He  has  left  his  museum 
at  Sheffield,  a  linen  industry  at  Keswick,  and  handloom 
weaving  at  Langdale,  fairly  successful,  the  Turner 
drawings  arranged  ( at  indescribable  labour )  in  the 
National  Gallery,  and  his  public  gifts.  But  much  of 
his  work  that  was  not  the  written  word  passed,  like 
the  drawing-lessons  he  had  given  to  working-men  at 
their  classes  in  Great  Ormond  Street  and  in  the  fields, 
in  1857.  But  it  was  not  failure  or  rejection,  or  even 
partial  and  futile  acceptance,  that  finally  and  interiorly 
bowed  him.  "  Your  poor  John  Ruskin  "  (his  signa- 
ture in  writing  to  one  who  loved  and  understood  him) 
was  the  John  Ruskin  who  never  pardoned  himself  for 
stopping  short  of  the  whole  renunciation  of  a  Saint 
Francis.  Lonely  and  unhappy  does  the  student  per- 
ceive him  to  have  been  who  was  one  of  the  greatest 
of  great  men  of  all  ages  ;  but  the  student  who  is  most 
cut  to  the  heart  by  that  perception  is  compelled  to 
wish  him  to  have  been  not  less  but  more  a  man  sacri- 
ficed. 


CHAPTER  II 

"MODERN  PAINTERS" 

THE   FIRST   VOLUME   (1843) 

"  THE  picture  which  is  looked  to  for  an  interpreta- 
tion of  nature  is  invaluable,  but  the  picture  which  is 
taken  as  a  substitute  for  nature  had  better  be  burned." 
John  Ruskin  began  to  write  Modern  Painters  in  order 
to  teach  men  how  they  should  see  Turner  to  be  like 
nature,  whereas  the  "  critics  "  of  that  day  called  him 
unnatural.  The  "  critics  "  of  our  days  would  leave 
that  word  to  their  wives  and  daughters.  But  it  was 
a  word  for  the  best  reviews  in  the  middle  of  the  cen- 
tury. In  order  to  prove  this  delicate  point  as  to  the 
interpretation  of  nature  and  its  value,  John  Ruskin, 
then  very  young,  wrote  the  first  half  of  the  first  vol- 
ume, and  the  discussion  of  Turner  follows,  with  the 
universal  digressions  that  make  of  this  volume  and  its 
fellows  a  work  at  once  of  unity  of  motive,  and  of 
multitudinous  variety.  The  first  volume  is  written 
with  extreme  explicatory  labour.  Having  thought  out 
a  certain  difficult  thesis,  the  writer  bends  every  power 
to  the  task  of  communication.  What  he  has  to  im- 
pose is  no  state  or  grace  or  affection,  what  he  has  to 
communicate  is  no  conjecture,  nor  does  he  make  his 
way  by  that  attractive  divination  of  authorship  which 
is  companionable,  now  at  fault,  now  halting,  now 

9 


IO  JOHN    RUSKIN 

leading  with  confidence  a  new  and  untried  way.  No 
more  than  a  treatise  of  science  is  this  work  designed 
to  bid  the  reader  to  that  table  of  entertainment,  the 
art  of  English  prose.  It  is  only  at  intervals,  and  at 
the  end  of  a  clause  of  explanation,  that  this  author, 
who  has  excited  so  many  enthusiasms,  some  futile 
and  some  worthy,  by  an  over-abundant  eloquence — a 
pure  style  but  somewhat  prodigal — adorns  his  argu- 
ment with  a  cadence,  a  group  of  beautiful  warm 
words,  as  it  were  alight  and  in  time,  "  musical "  and 
"  pictorial,"  the  vital,  just,  and  brilliant  phrase  that 
afterwards  took  the  nation. 

The  argument  is  difficult — difficult  in  the  prolonged 
study  made  by  him  who  wrought  it  from  the  begin- 
ning to  the  end,  most  difficult  to  present  sufficiently 
in  a  brief  commentary  such  as  this.  What  Ruskin 
had  to  prove  was  that  a  few  greatly  admired  masters 
— Salvator  Rosa,  Caspar  Poussin,  and  Claude,  espe- 
cially,— were  inferior  as  painters  of  landscape  to  a 
certain  number  of  English  artists  at  work  about  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  ;  but  their  inferiority 
also  to  the  earlier  masters  whose  landscape  was  but  an 
accessory,  and  to  the  Venetians  of  the  great  school  of 
colour,  whose  landscape  has  been  mistaken  for  arbi- 
trary decoration,  makes  so  large  an  incident  of  the 
work  that  the  title  becomes  questionable.  Modern 
Painter*  proved  to  be  a  great  apology  for  the  art  of 
the  past,  and  of  all  periods  of  the  past,  for  Gainsbor- 
ough profits  splendidly :  the  antithesis  disappears. 
Salvator  Rosa,  Caspar  Poussin,  and  Claude  have,  be- 
sides, ceased  (thanks  to  Ruskin's  own  teaching)  to 


"  MODERN    PAINTERS  "  II 

have  the  importance  that  the  critics  of  sixty  years  ago 
assigned  to  them ;  their  names  do  not  stand,  in  our 
thoughts  to-day,  opposed  conspicuously  to  those  of 
later  men  now  long  dead,  and  brought,  in  our  view, 
near  to  those  predecessors  by  the  perspective  of  time. 
The  slight  anomaly  of  the  name  Modern  Painters  is 
increased  for  us  now ;  but  that  name  represents  much 
that  is  of  significance.  The  admiration  of  Salvator 
Rosa  and  the  contempt  of  Turner,  the  fact  that 
Claude  was  a  seventeenth  century  painter  and  Turner 
was  new,  are  things  important  in  the  history  of  the 
authorship  of  Modern  Painters.  Let  it  be  noted  here 
that  a  writer  to  whom  was  committed  by  one  of  the 
principal  reviews  the  criticism  of  art  in  1842  preferred 
a  Mr.  Lee  to  Gainsborough — "  he  is  superior  to  him 
always  in  subject,  composition,  and  variety " — not 
with  an  irresponsible  preference,  but  with  the  prefer- 
ence of  a  connoisseur,  "subject,  composition,  and 
variety,"  not  being  things  whereof  the  first  comer 
is  able  so  to  print  opinions.  "  Shade  of  Gains- 
borough !  "  says  Ruskin — "  deep-though  ted,  solemn 
Gainsborough,  forgive  us  for  rewriting  this  sentence." 
Lee  was  a  painter  more  insular  than  it  is  permitted  to 
a  painter  to  be,  piecemeal  and  literal,  and  very  cold 
in  colour;  "well-intentioned,  simple,  free  from  affec- 
tation," and  doing  his  work  "  with  constant  reference 
to  nature,"  says  the  preface  to  the  second  edition  of 
Modern  Painters,  but  lacking  "  those  technical  quali- 
ties which  are  more  especially  the  object  of  an  artist's 
admiration."  This  phrase  is  quoted  here  because  it 
is  one  of  many  that  should  keep  the  reader  straight  in 


12  JOHN    RUSKIN 

the  following  of  the  doctrine  of  this  book.  A  reader 
who  had  spared  himself  the  pains  of  close  following 
might  think  Ruskin  to  have  taught  that  "  well-inten- 
tioned "  work  bearing  a  "  constant  reference  to  na- 
ture "  had  nearly  all  the  qualities,  whereas  in  this 
passage  he  declares  it  to  have,  virtually,  none. 

The  evil  of  the  ancient  landscape  art  (Ruskin  per- 
sistently calls  it  ancient,  but  let  the  reader  bear  in 
mind  that  he  is  in  the  act  of  comparing  it  with  more 
ancient  as  well  as  with  modern)  "  lies,  I  believe," 
says  this  preface  to  the  second  edition, 

"  In  the  painter's  taking  upon  him  to  modify  God's 
works  at  his  pleasure,  casting  the  shadow  of  himself 
on  all  he  sees.  We  shall  not  pass  through  a  single 
gallery  of  old  art  without  hearing  this  topic  of  praise 
confidently  advanced.  The  sense  of  artificialness, 
.  the  clumsiness  of  combination  by  which  the 
meddling  of  man  is  made  evident,  and  the  feebleness 
of  his  hand  branded  on  the  inorganisation  of  his 
monstrous  creature,  are  advanced  as  a  proof  of  in- 
ventive power." 

We  ought  to  note  the  word  "  inorganisation."  For 
we  shall  be  willing  to  take  it  from  Ruskin  that  the 
painter  convicted  of  that  is  the  one  condemned ;  he 
who  destroys  in  order  to  reconstruct  produces  inor- 
ganised  work,  and  work  therefore  without  vitality. 
But  a  certain  foreseen  and  judicial  re-arrangement  of 
natural  facts — a  new  but  indestructive  relation — proves 
that  very  organic  quality,  and  is  defended,  not  once 
or  twice,  but  a  hundred  times  in  the  teaching  of  Mod- 
ern Painters.  And  only  by  exquisitely  close  reading 


"MODERN  PAINTERS"  13 

can  we  distinguish  and  reconcile,  so  as  to  take  this 
defence  and  also  what  follows  : 

"In  his  observations  on  the  foreground  of  the  San 
Pietro  Martire,  Sir  Joshua  advances,  as  matter  of 
praise,  that  the  plants  are  discriminated  'just  as  much 
as  was  necessary  for  variety,  and  no  more.'  Had  this 
foreground  been  occupied  by  a  group  of  animals,  we 
should  have  been  surprised  to  be  told  that  the  lion,  the 
serpent,  and  the  dove  .  .  .  were  distinguished 
from  each  other  just  as  much  as  was  necessary  for 
variety,  and  no  more.  ...  If  the  distinctive 
forms  of  animal  life  are  meant  for  our  reverent  ob- 
servance, is  it  likely  that  those  of  vegetable  life  are 
made  merely  to  be  swept  away  ?  " 

(In  this  case  Sir  Joshua,  according  to  Modern 
Painters,  was  wrong  even  as  to  facts,  and  Titian,  like 
Raphael,  was  accurate  in  his  foreground  flowers.)  Sir 
Joshua  separates,  says  Ruskin,  "  as  chief . enemies,  the 
details  and  the  whole,  which  an  artist  cannot  be  great 
unless  he  reconciles."  "  Details  perfect  in  unity,  and 
contributing  to  a  final  purpose,  are  the  sign  of  the 
production  of  a  consummate  master."  This  is  surely 
a  passage  of  singular  difficulty.  Truth  to  nature — 
the  statement  of  no  falsehood  and  the  doing  of  no 
destructive  violence — is  an  intelligible  condition  of 
the  art  whereof  this  is  the  apostolate  ;  but  detail  ?  Is 
detail,  or  explicit  recognition  of  minor  facts,  really 
the  "  sign  of  the  production  of  a  consummate  mas- 
ter "  ?  "  Details  contributing  to  a  final  purpose " 
seems  to  be  a  phrase  permitting  the  ignoring  of  details 
that  do  not  contribute.  And  what  does  the  Impres- 


14  JOHN    RUSKIN 

sionist  ask  more  than  this  ?  A  powerful  artist,  says 
Ruskin  in  a  previous  sentence,  "  necessarily  looks 
upon  complete  parts  as  the  very  sign  of  error,  weak- 
ness, and  ignorance."  Once  for  all,  this  should  an- 
swer the  common  and  careless  reading  of  Modern 
Painters  and  the  rest. 

Leaving  the  question  of  detail,  then,  aside,  or  leav- 
ing it,  if  once  for  all  is  hardly  possible,  for  a  time,  we 
shall  do  justice  to  Ruskin's  teaching  by  choosing  from 
his  most  dogmatic  pages  the  following  passages  that 
bear  upon  the  larger  question  of  truth  : 

"  When  there  are  things  in  the  foreground  of  Sal- 
vator,  of  which  I  cannot  pronounce  whether  they  be 
granite,  or  slate,  or  tufa,  I  affirm  that  there  is  in  them 
neither  harmonious  union  nor  simple  effect,  but  simple 
monstrosity.  .  .  .  The  elements  of  brutes  can 
only  mix  in  corruption,  the  elements  of  inorganic  na- 
ture only  in  annihilation.  We  may,  if  we  choose, 
put  together  centaur  monsters :  but  they  must  still  be 
half  man,  half  horse ;  they  cannot  be  both  man  and 
horse,  nor  either  man  or  horse." 

And  this: 

"  That  only  should  be  considered  a  picture  in  which 
the  spirit,  not  the  materials,  observe,  but  the  animat- 
ing emotion,  of  many  .  .  .  studies  is  concen- 
trated and  exhibited  by  the  aid  of  long-studied,  pain- 
fully chosen  forms  ;  idealised  in  the  right  sense  of  the 
word,  not  by  audacious  liberty  of  that  faculty  of  de- 
grading God's  works  which  man  calls  his  *  imagina- 
tion,' but  by  perfect  assertion  of  entire  knowledge 
wrought  out  with  that  noblest  industry  which 
concentrates  profusion  into  point,  and  transforms  ac- 


"MODERN  PAINTERS"  15 

cumulation  into  structure.  .  .  .  There  is  ... 
more  ideality  in  a  great  artist's  selection  and  treatment 
of  roadside  weeds  and  brook-worn  pebbles  than  in  all 
the  struggling  caricature  of  the  meaner  mind,  which 
heaps  its  foreground  with  colossal  columns,  and  heaves 
impossible  mountains  into  the  encumbered  sky." 

Those  columns  and  those  mountains  get  no  respect 
from  any  one  at  present,  but  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  the  book  before  us  was  in  part  written  to  over- 
throw them. 

All  this  is  from  the  later-written  preface.  We 
come  next  to  Modern  Painters,  Part  I.  Section  I,  the 
earliest  important  page  of  one  of  the  greatest  authors 
of  our  incomparable  literature.  It  is  a  laborious  page, 
in  great  part  filled  by  one  sentence  explaining  that 
public  opinion  can  hardly  be  right  upon  matters  of  art 
until,  with  the  lapse  of  time,  it  shall  have  accepted 
guidance.  The  same  chapter  declares  war  explicitly 
upon  the  "  old  masters  "  in  landscape,  and  the  reader 
has  to  add  to  the  names  of  Salvator  Rosa,  Caspar 
Poussin,  and  Claude,  those  of  Cuyp,  Berghem,  Both, 
Ruysdael,  Hobbema,  Teniers  (in  landscape),  Paul 
Potter,  Canaletto,  "  and  the  various  Van  somethings 
and  Back  somethings,  more  especially  and  malignantly 
those  who  have  libelled  the  sea."  In  the  chapter, 
soon  following,  "  On  Ideals  of  Power,"  is  to  be  espe- 
cially noted  the  just  thought : 

"  It  is  falsely  said  of  great  men  that  they  waste  their 

lofty    powers    on     unworthy    objects.       The    object 

cannot  be  unworthy  of  the  power  which  it 

brings  into  exertion,  because  nothing  can  be  accom- 


l6  JOHN    RUSKIN 

plished  by  a  greater  power  which  can  be  accomplished 
by  a  less,  any  more  than  bodily  strength  can  be  ex- 
erted where  there  is  nothing  to  resist  it.  ... 
Be  it  remembered,  then,  Power  is  never  wasted." 

(Ruskin,  at  this  time  and  ever  after,  used  "  which  " 
where  "  that "  would  be  both  more  correct  and  less 
inelegant.  He  probably  had  the  habit  from  him  who 
did  more  than  any  other  to  disorganise  the  English 
language — that  is,  Gibbon.) 

The  chapter  on  "  Imitation  "  is  in  part  addressed 
to  the  correction  of  a  half-educated  pleasure,  since 
then  generally  relinquished  even  by  the  half-educated, 
and  even  in  the  case  of  popular  pictures.  Amid 
much  that  is  less  valuable,  the  reader  finds  this  obvious 
but  excellent  distinction : 

"  A  marble  figure  does  not  look  like  what  it  is  not : 
it  looks  like  marble,  and  like  the  form  of  a  man.  It 
does  not  look  like  a  man,  which  it  is  not,  but  like  the 
form  of  a  man,  which  it  is.  ...  The  chalk  out- 
line of  the  bough  of  a  tree  on  paper  is  not  an  imita- 
tion ;  it  looks  like  chalk  and  paper — not  like  wood, 
and  that  which  it  suggests  to  the  mind  is  not  properly 
said  to  be  like  the  form  of  a  bough,  it  is  the  form  of  a 
bough." 

The  contrast  is,  of  course,  with  work  in  colour,  and 
it  is  finely  made,  with  the  conclusion,  for  all  the  arts 
alike,  "  Ideas  of  truth  are  the  foundation,  and  ideas 
of  imitation  the  destruction,  of  art."  On  the  chapter 
"  Of  Ideas  of  Relation"  the  criticism  of  thirty  years 
ago,  led  by  France  on  the  initiative  of  Theophile 
Gautier,  and  generally  proclaimed  by  a  generation 


"MODERN  PAINTERS"  17 

now  nearly  dispossessed,  joined  issue  with  Ruskin. 
He  teaches  that  art  has  its  highest  exercise  in  "the 
invention  of  such  incidents  and  thoughts  as  can  be 
expressed  in  words  as  well  as  on  canvas,  and  are 
totally  independent  of  any  means  of  art  but  such  as 
may  serve  for  the  bare  suggestion  of  them."  Let  me 
give  the  instance  cited  in  the  text : 

"  The  principal  object  in  the  foreground  of  Turner's 
4  Building  of  Carthage '  is  a  group  of  children  sailing 
toy  boats.  The  exquisite  choice  of  this  incident,  as 
expressive  of  the  ruling  passion  which  was  to  be  the 
source  of  future  greatness,  in  preference  to  the  tumult 
of  busy  stonemasons  or  arming  soldiers,  is  quite  as 
appreciable  when  it  is  told  as  when  it  is  seen, — it  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  technical  difficulties  of  paint- 
ing :  a  scratch  of  the  pen  would  have  conveyed  the 
idea.  .  .  .  Claude,  in  subjects  of  the  same  kind, 
commonly  introduces  people  carrying  red  trunks  with 
iron  locks  about ;  the  intellect  can  have  no 

occupation  here  ;  we  must  look  to  the  imitation  or  to 
nothing.  Consequently,  Turner  rises  above  Claude 
in  the  very  instant  of  the  conception  of  his  picture." 

Are  we  really  required  to  connect  this  foreground  in- 
cident essentially  with  the  "  conception  "  of  Turner's 
picture  ?  And  how  about  Turner's  pictures  wherein 
no  such  unlandscape-like  accessory  occurs  ? 

Ruskin  was,  it  is  evident  in  a  score  of  places,  no 
musician.  How  should  a  musician  consent  to  the 
judgment  that  his  art  should  do  its  highest  and  most 
musicianly  work  in  uttering  thoughts  that  another  art 
might  have  served  ?  Is  not  an  absolute  melody,  or  an 
absolute  musical  phrase,  or  a  harmony — Batti^  batti. 


1 8  JOHN    RUSKIN 

the  opening  notes  of  Parsifal,  This  is  My  Body  from 
liach's  St.  Matthew,  or  the  chords  of  PurcelFs  Winter 
— aloof — not  far,  but  different — from  the  several 
worlds  of  the  other  arts  ?  The  man  who  has  not 
music  in  his  soul  may  perhaps  be  a  man  debarred 
from  thought  that  is  not,  in  some  sense,  literature  ; 
the  other  arts,  albeit  distinct  enough,  may  not  have 
the  power  that  music  has  to  prove  the  distinction  in 
the  ear  that  is  able  to  hear.  Therefore  he  who  has 
not  the  car  lacks  the  strongest  of  the  proofs  that  the 
arts  are  not  interchangeable.  The  able  eye  will  not 
do  so  much.  To  advance  such  a  conjecture  here 
may  be  something  like  presumption,  but  it  is  intended 
to  explain  one  of  the  few  faults  or  weak  places  in  the 
great  body  of  doctrine  of  Modern  Painters.  The  least 
thoughtful  reader  has  by  rote  the  accusation  against 
Ruskin  that  his  teaching  on  art  abounds  in  errors  and 
u  inconsistencies."  The  present  writer  finds  no  such 
abundance  of  faults  in  the  great  argument.  There, 
however,  is  one. 

From  the  chapter  on  "  Ideas  of  Power "  may  be 
cited  the  admirable  explanation  of  the  conviction  of 
power  produced  in  all  minds,  ignorant  and  educated, 
by  the  "sketch,"  or  by  the  beginning.  "  The  first 
five  chalk  touches  bring  a  head  into  existence  out  of 
nothing.  No  five  touches  in  the  whole  course  of  the 
work  will  ever  do  so  much  as  these."  Toward 
completion  the  decrease  of  respective  effect  continues. 
We  ought  not,  Ruskin  tells  us,  to  prefer  this  sensation 
of  power  to  the  intellectual  estimate  of  power  that 
comes  as  the  work  is  developed.  Those  who  take, 


"MODERN  PAINTERS"  19 

without  the  necessary  care  for  precise  meanings  what 
he  has  said  elsewhere  against  Michelangiolo  should 
check  their  own  exaggeration  by  the  sentence  in 
which  he  judges  that  master  to  be  the  only  father  of 
art  from  whose  work  we  get  both  the  sensation  and 
the  intellectual  estimate  of  power,  and  equally.  The 
chapter  "  Of  Ideas  of  Truth  "  entangles  us  once  again 
in  the  intricacies  of  this  argument.  "  No  falsehood," 
it  assures  us,  was  ever  beautiful.  But  granting  that 
the  beautiful  centaur  is  not  in  this  subtle  sense  a 
falsehood,  does  the  same  dispensation  hold  good  in 
the  case  of  a  brown  shadow — a  fictitious  brown 
shadow,  even — cast  upon  a  twilight  road  in  order  that 
a  bright  cloud  may  be  seen  to  shine  ?  The  painter 
has  not  nature's  materials  wherewith  to  make  his 
picture  match  hers;  and  that  her  foreground  is  light 
whilst  yet  her  cloud  shines  does  not  make  the  same 
relation  possible  to  man,  who  does  not  hold  the 
pencils  of  light.  Truth  as  it  is  in  a  paint-box  can  be 
but  relative.  This  is  the  obvious  protest  of  every 
reader.  Nay,  does  not  Ruskin  himself  justify  Rubens 
who — out  of  gaiety  and  vitality  of  heart  and  not  be- 
cause of  awful  devotion  to  one  beautiful  and  hardly 
accessible  thing,  like  the  luminosity  of  a  cloud — puts 
the  sun  in  one  part  of  the  sky  and  draws  the  sun- 
beams from  another,  and,  again,  casts  shadows  at  right 
angles  to  the  light  ?  "  Bold  and  frank  licences  "  he 
names  these — no  worse ;  albeit  with  this  fine  warn- 
ing :  "  The  young  artist  must  keep  in  mind  that  the 
painter's  greatness  consists  not  in  his  taking,  but  in 
his  atoning  for,  them."  It  remains  for  him  who 


2O  JOHN    RUSK.IN 

would  enter  into  the  matter  to  follow  the  argument 
of  Modern  Painters  as  its  author  presents  it  and  as  no 
summary  comment  is  able  to  represent  it.  Let  it 
only  be  added  here  that  the  reason  Ruskin  giv;s  for 
the  abhorrence  of  "  falsehood  " — that  nature  is  im- 
measurably superior  to  all  that  the  human  mind  can 
conceive — seems  to  be  precisely  a  reason  why  man 
might  be  content  with  one  or  two  truths  at  a  time 
and  reverently  glad  of  the  means  (fictitious  shadow 
amongst  them)  of  securing  the  one  or  two ;  not  in 
disorganisation,  but  in  the  unity  of,  as  it  were,  a 
dazzled  pictorial  vision,  confessing  its  limitations  by 
fewness,  and  its  love  of  natural  facts  by  closing  with 
the  few.  If  Turner  was  so  supreme  an  artist  as  to 
have  stolen  that  fire  from  heaven  which  is  the  light, 
why  still  there  are  painters  who  have  not  it  and  yet 
have  not  deserved  to  die.  But  to  say  so  of  Turner 
would  be  a  mere  trick  of  speech.  Not  even  he  had 
more  than  a  paint-box ;  but  doubtless  he  was  the 
most  divine  landscape  painter  that  ever  lived.  And 
his  great  panegyrist  magnifies  him  for  the  sake  of  that 
natural  truth  whereof  he  writes:  "To  him  who  does 
not  search  it  out  it  is  darkness,  as  it  is  to  him  who 
does,  infinity." 

The  chapter  on  "The  Relative  Importance  of 
Truths"  intends  to  prove,  "  if  it  be  not  self-evident," 
that  "  generality  gives  importance  to  the  subject,  and 
limitation  or  particularity  to  the  predicate,"  and  proves 
it  by  admirable  reasoning.  From  "  Truths  of  Col- 
our" might  be  cited  something  difficult  to  reconcile 
with  Ruskin's  judgment  elsewhere  in  favour  of  the 


"MODERN  PAINTERS"  21 

Tuscan  colourists  (local-colourists,  that  is)  and  against 
the  chiaroscurists,  even  Rembrandt.  But  here  and  in 
other  places  it  is  barely  just  to  bear  in  mind  the  age 
of  the  writer  of  the  first  volume  of  Modern  Painters, 
and  the  half  century  following  during  which  he  thought 
out  incessantly  the  same  themes.  Wonderful  was  this 
mind  of  four  and  twenty ;  it  would  have  been  mon- 
strous had  it  undergone  none  of  the  change  that  comes 
of  mental  experience,  and  of  a  pushing-on  in  the  un- 
dertaken way. 

And  this  brings  us  to  the  end  of  the  first  seven 
chapters  of  this  first  volume — chapters  of  principles, 
which  are  applied  with  a  large  sweep  of  allusion  to 
the  works  of  all  schools.  When,  in  the  course  of 
this  most  interesting  section,  we  find  fidelity  of  detail 
again  commended,  let  us  remember  that  neglect  of 
the  spirit  and  truth  as  well  as  of  the  letter  of  natural 
things  was  characteristic  of  the  English  painters  be- 
fore this  book  itself  did  so  much  to  alter  the  manner 
of  our  school.  We  are  used  now  to  the  English 
landscape  that  is  the  "  corrupt  following "  of  this 
apostle,  Ruskin,  and  is  full  of  literal  detail ;  but  it 
did  not  exist  when  Modern  Painters  was  written.  It 
was  necessary  to  tell  people  accustomed  to  a  brown 
tree  and  a  tapering  stem  that  Raphael,  Titian,  Ghir- 
landajo,  and  Perugino  painted  little  mallows,  straw- 
berries, and  all  wayside  things  with  devotion  and 
precision,  that  Masaccio  drew  a  true  mountain,  that 
the  Umbrians  painted  true  skies,  that  Giotto  traced 
the  form  of  a  rock,  and  the  Venetians  of  a  tree,  in 
their  right  anatomy.  It  was  insular  then  to  be  coarse 


22  JOHN    RUSKIN 

and  general ;  and  the  teaching  of  detail  was  liberal 
education.  The  chapter  on  "  Application "  is  re- 
markable for  its  generosity.  Austere  had  been  the 
principles  in  the  setting  forth,  but  the  applications 
give  absolution,  I  know  not  quite  how  consciously, 
assuredly  not  arbitrarily,  but  sometimes  to  the  reader's 
wonder,  seeing  what  has  gone  before.  A  noble  con- 
vention is  excused,  and  the  passion  of  one  man  is  ac- 
knowledged to  be  sudden  and  of  another  to  be  slow. 
It  is  rarely  indeed  that  the  application  of  the  stren- 
uous principles  is  made  by  Ruskin  to  condemn  any 
man  altogether,  if  that  man  have  genius ;  the  final 
reference  is  to  that ;  pardon  is  for  the  great,  and  the 
court  of  judgment  that  grants  it  cannot  publish  its 
rules.  The  Dutch  painters  are  unhouseled,  and  so  is 
Domenichino.  The  work  of  that  Bolognese  is  named 
by  Ruskin  not  failure,  but  "  perpetration  and  com- 
mission." The  painter  of  the  second  greatest  picture 
in  the  world,  as  the  connoisseur,  during  a  century  or 
two,  held  the  "Communion  of  St.  Jerome"  to  be,  is 
here  declared  "  palpably  incapable  of  doing  anything 
good,  great,  or  right."  He  who  said  this,  studying 
Domenichino  for  himself,  a  student  twenty-three  years 
old  or  less,  against  the  world,  held  a  "  consistency  " 
and  knew  it.  And,  of  course,  the  landscape  painters 
already  named — Caspar  Poussin,  Canalctto,  and  the 
rest — arc  unforgiven.  It  is  through  a  series  of  criti- 
cisms on  the  Royal  Academy  of  the  "  Forties  "  that 
we  come  at  last  to  the  detail  of  the  work  of  Turner. 
At  the  outset  Ruskin  traces  the  foundation  of 
Turner's  greatness  in  his  painting  of  things  intimate 


"  MODERN    PAINTERS  "  23 

and  long  loved.  The  Yorkshire  downs  taught  him, 
for  instance,  the  masses  of  mountain  drawing.  With 
something  that  looks  like  rashness  Ruskin  says  of  any 
landscape  painter  that  "  if  he  attempt  to  impress  on 
his  landscapes  any  other  spirit  than  that  he  has  felt, 
and  to  make  them  the  landscapes  of  other  times,  it  is 
all  over  with  him,  at  least  in  the  degree  in  which  such 
reflected  moonshine  takes  the  place  of  the  genuine 
light  of  the  present  day."  If  in  some  other  place 
such  a  judgment  as  this  is  to  be  reconciled  with  the 
praise  of  Turner's  "  Building  of  Carthage,"  it  is  not 
here.  (That  picture  is,  in  effect,  renounced  later  on, 
as,  in  colour,  unworthy  of  the  master.)  Moreover, 
when  a  great  exception  is  made  to  the  general  peril 
of  taking  inspirations  from  afar  or  from  antiquity,  in 
the  fine  phrase :  "  Nicola  Pisano  got  nothing  but 
good,  the  modern  French  nothing  but  evil,  from  the 
study  of  the  antique ;  but  Nicola  Pisano  had  a  God 
and  a  character  " ;  how  is  this  to  be  taken  as  a  warn- 
ing by  a  student  who  is  not  a  Frenchman  and  who 
has  not  abandoned  the  faith  than  he  too  has  a  God 
and  a  character  ?  Yet  it  is  spoken  by  Ruskin  as  a 
warning,  nearly  as  a  menace.  The  study  of  the  deal- 
ing of  Turner  with  France,  Switzerland,  and  Italy, 
which  follows,  and  of  their  dealings  with  his  growing 
power,  is  an  exquisite  one,  notwithstanding  some  cer- 
tain paradoxes — exquisite  in  regard  to  that  beautiful 
and  diverse  Europe,  and  in  regard  to  the  genius. 
Ruskin  says,  perhaps,  too  little  rather  than  too  much 
of  the  un-Italian  spirit  of  the  Italy  of  Turner's  work  : 
11 1  recollect  no  instance  of  Turner's  drawing  a  cypress 


24  JOHN    RUSKIN 

except  in  general  terms."  The  man,  I  may  add,  who 
possessed  not,  among  the  many  spirits  of  the  woods, 
the  special  spirit  of  the  cypress,  assuredly  could  not 
spiritually  paint  the  country  of  the  hill-village,  the 
belfry,  the  gold-white  simple  walls,  the  pure  and  re- 
mote sky  pricked  with  delicate  and  upright  forms  on 
the  hill-edge,  the  country  of  soft  dust  and  of  old  col- 
ours, the  country  of  poverty,  which  is  Italy.  An 
opulent  and  an  elegant  Italy  of  balustrades  and  gar- 
dens, and,  if  one  may  venture  to  say  so,  a  country  of 
the  ideal  past,  seems  to  be  Turner's.  Of  the  poplars, 
of  the  rivers,  of  the  large  skies  and  the  flat  valleys  of 
France,  Turner  became  the  son  by  singular  sympathy. 
Ruskin  describes  the  adoption  in  a  brief  and  lovely 
passage  on  the  beauties  of  that  domestic  France.  He 
tells  us  that  Turner's  rendering  of  Switzerland  was 
generally  deficient,  but  this  seems  to  be  said  rather  on 
a  theory,  and  we  cannot  forget  the  entire  praise  and 
wonder  bestowed  elsewhere  on  the  drawings  of  Swiss 
and  Savoyard  mountains. 

The  "  changes  introduced  by  Turner  in  the  received 
system  of  art  "  shall  be  given  in  the  words  of  Modern 
Painters,  the  page  being  one  of  the  most  important  in 
the  work : 

"  It  was  impossible  for  him,  with  all  his  keen  and 
long-disciplined  perceptions,  not  to  feel  that  the  real 
colour  of  nature  had  never  been  attempted  by  any 
school ;  and  that  though  conventional  representations 
had  been  given  by  the  Venetians  of  sunlight  and  twi- 
light by  invariably  rendering  the  whites  golden  and  the 
blues  green,  yet  of  the  actual,  joyous,  pure,  roseate 


"MODERN  PAINTERS"  25 

hues  of  the  external  world  no  record  had  ever  been 
given.  He  saw  also  that  the  finish  and  specific  gran- 
deur of  nature  had  been  given,  but  her  fulness,  space, 
and  mystery,  never ;  and  he  saw  that  the  great  land- 
scape-painters had  always  sunk  the  lower  middle  tints 
of  nature  in  extreme  shade,  bringing  the  entire  melody 
of  colour  as  many  degrees  down  as  their  possible  light 
was  inferior  to  nature's;  and  that  in  so  doing  a  gloomy 
principle  had  influenced  them  even  in  their  choice  of 
subject.  For  the  conventional  colour  he  substituted  a 
pure  straightforward  rendering  of  fact,  as  far  as  was  in 
his  power ;  and  that  not  of  such  fact  as  had  been  be- 
fore even  suggested,  but  of  all  that  is  most  brilliant, 
beautiful,  and  inimitable ;  he  went  to  the  cataract  for 
its  iris,  to  the  conflagration  for  its  flames,  asked  of  the 
sea  its  intensest  azure,  of  the  sky  its  clearest  gold.  For 
the  limited  space  and  defined  forms  of  elder  landscape 
he  substituted  the  quantity  and  the  mystery  of  the  vast- 
est scenes  of  earth  ;  and  for  the  subdued  chiaroscuro 
he  substituted  first  a  balanced  diminution  of  opposition 
throughout  the  scale,  and  afterwards  .  .  .  attempted 
to  reverse  the  old  principle,  taking  the  lowest  portion 
of  the  scale  truly,  and  merging  the  upper  part  in  high 
light.  Innovations  so  daring  and  so  various  could  not 
be  introduced  without  corresponding  peril ;  the  diffi- 
culties that  lay  in  his  way  were  more  than  any  human 
intellect  could  altogether  surmount." 

I  will  stop  upon  a  detail  of  this  passage,  of  which 
the  whole  technical  significance  is  important,  the  dic- 
tion being  of  great  precision,  to  say  that  the  reader 
ought  to  make  himself  master  of  all  that  Ruskin  means 
by  "  the  scale."  Any  man  who.  has  thought  about 
any  picture  must  be  aware  of  "  the  scale,"  and  must 
recognise  its  limited  relations  in  painting  as  the  source 
of  a  difficulty — or  rather  an  impossibility — and  as 


26  JOHN    RUSKIN 

therefore  the  justification  of  a  convention :  not  an 
arbitrary  convention,  but  a  convention  commanded, 
directed,  and  controlled  by  certain  truths,  and  by  cer- 
tain beauties  salient  amongst  those  truths.  And  it  is 
because  Ruskin  makes  the  most  profound  and  the  most 
searching  confession — the  best  of  all  possible  confes- 
sions— of  the  convention  of  relations  whereof  a  painter 
has  to  make  his  picture,  that  a  reader,  even  with  all 
good  will  to  be  taught,  may  be  doubtful,  at  the  end, 
whether  Modern  Painters  does  in  fact  succeed  in  prov- 
ing one  way  to  be  blessed  and  the  other  banned.  But 
I  repeat,  this  is  to  be  studied  at  first  hand  from  the 
book.  And  the  book,  entering  upon  Section  1 1,  does 
justice,  once  for  all,  to  the  painters  of  tone,  even 
Salvator  Rosa  and  Caspar  Poussin,  and  to  what  they 
achieved,  according  to  their  scheme  of  relations. 
Albeit  the  chapter  on  "  Tone "  is  one  of  the  most 
technical  it  is  one  of  the  most  interesting.  In  regard 
to  Turner  on  this  matter, 

11  In  his  power  of  associating  cold  with  warm  light 
no  one  has  ever  approached  or  even  ventured  into  the 
same  field  with  him.  The  old  masters,  content  with 
one  simple  tone,  sacrificed  to  its  unity  all  the  exquisite 
gradations  and  varied  touches  of  relief  and  change  by 
which  nature  unites  her  hours  with  each  other.  They 
give  the  warmth  of  the  sinking  sun,  overwhelming  all 
things  in  its  gold,  but  they  do  not  give  those  grey 
passages  about  the  horizon  where,  seen  through  its 
dying  light,  the  cool  and  the  gloom  of  night  gather 
themselves  for  their  victory." 

The  chapter  on  "  Colour "  opens  with  a  very 
famous  page  in  which  the  Alban  Mount,  the  Cam- 


"MODERN  PAINTERS"  27 

pagna,  and  La  Riccia,  fresh  in  the  sun  from  a  stormy 
shower,  is  compared  with  Caspar  Poussin's  landscape. 
Despite  its  beauty,  and  certainly  because  of  some  of 
its  beauties,  it  cannot,  I  venture  to  think,  take  a  clas- 
sic place,  and  I  have  not  extracted  it.  It  is  multitu- 
dinous as  the  scene  it  describes — the  enormous  and 
various  scenery  of  the  sky  after  storm,  and  that  of  the 
woods,  the  mountains,  the  plain,  and  the  far  sea. 
Not  one  vain  or  vacant  or  lifeless  or  superfluous  word 
is  to  be  found  therein  ;  all  is  abundance,  life,  and  sight, 
and  the  diction  is  as  instant  as  it  is  pure.  The  effort 
of  this  description,  whereby,  in  the  end,  the  reader  is 
little  moved  and  yet  a  little  wearied,  renews  the  obsti- 
nate question  whether  it  may  not  be  that  so  many  of 
nature's  wonders,  as  well  as  so  many  of  a  fine  author's 
wonders,  are  too  many  for  one  picture,  one  page.  Not 
in  arrogance,  but  in  humility,  might  the  painter  de- 
tach one  luminous  truth  of  natural  fact  so  that  it 
might  be  the  inspiration  of  his  work,  and  that  work 
be  no  portrait  of  inimitable  things,  but  a  beautiful 
thing  of  its  own  kind,  owing  its  beauty  to  one  beauty 
of  nature's.  It  is  true  that  to  try  for  the  organic  all 
is  more  glorious ;  the  few,  the  one  perhaps,  did  so  by 
genius — Turner.  But  those  who  are  less  than  Turner 
and  have  been  taught  that  they  ought  to  try  for  all 
have  made  bad  pictures.  And  even  this  master  of 
literature,  trying  for  all  in  this  splendid  description, 
has  not  made  a  good  page. 

It  is  in  regard  to  this  power  over  numerous  truth — 
this  most  solitary  power  over  numerous  truth — that  Rus- 
kin  says  of  the  master: 


28  JOHN    RUSKIN 

"  Turner,  and  Turner  only,  would  follow  and  ren- 
der .  .  .  that  mystery  of  decided  line,  that  dis- 
tinct, sharp,  visible,  but  unintelligible  and  inextrica- 
ble richness,  which,  examined  part  by  part,  is  to  the 
eye  nothing  but  confusion  and  defeat,  which,  taken  as 
a  whole,  is  all  unity,  symmetry,  and  truth." 

Ruskin  shows  us,  in  another  place,  how  each  of 
the  touches  of  nature  is  unique  and  diverse,  so  that 
though  we  cannot  tell  what  such  or  such  a  touch 
may  be,  yet  we  know  "  it  cannot  be  any  thing  "  ; 
while  even  the  most  dexterous  distances  of  Salvator 
or  Poussin  "  pretend  to  secrecy  without  having  any- 
thing to  conceal,  and  are  ambiguous,  not  from  the 
concentration  of  meaning,  but  from  the  want  of  it." 
This  excellent  sentence  is  from  those  greatly  scientific 
chapters  on  "Truth  of  Colour,"  "Truth  of  Chiaro- 
scuro," "  Truth  of  Space  "  as  dependent  on  the  focus 
of  the  eye,  wherein  also  we  read  that  "  Nature  is 
never  distinct  and  never  vacant,  .  .  .  always 
mysterious,  but  always  abundant ;  you  always  see 
something,  but  you  never  see  all " ;  that  the  Italians 
were  vacant,  and  the  Dutch  distinct,  "  Nature's  rule 
being  .  .  .  'you  shall  never  be  able  to  count 
the  bricks,  but  you  shall  never  see  a  dead  wall ' " ; 
and  that  "  Turner  introduced  a  new  era  in  landscape 
art  by  showing  that  the  foreground  might  be  sunk  for 
the  distance,  and  that  it  was  possible  to  express  im- 
mediate proximity  to  the  spectator  without  giving 
anything  like  completeness  to  the  forms  of  the  near 
objects."  This,  Turner  accomplished,  not  by  "  slurred 
or  soft  lines  (always  the  sign  of  vice  in  art),  but  by  a 


"MODERN  PAINTERS"  29 

decisive  imperfection,  a  firm,  but  partial,  assertion  of 
form,  which  the  eye  feels  indeed  to  be  close  home  to 
it,  and  yet  cannot  rest  upon,  nor  cling  to,  nor  en- 
tirely understand."  And  let  the  following  passages 
be  quoted  from  the  chapters  on  "  Colour "  and 
"  Shadow  "  before  we  pass  to  the  chapters  on  "  Skies  " 
and  "  Mountains  "  :  u  The  ordinary  tinsel  and  trash 
.  with  which  the  walls  of  our  Academy  are 
half  covered  ...  is  based  on  a  system  of  col- 
our beside  which  Turner's  is  as  Vesta  to  Cotytto — 
the  chastity  of  fire  to  the  foulness  of  earth."  "  There 
is  scarcely  an  artist  of  the  present  day  .  .  .  who 
does  not  employ  more  pure  and  raw  colour  than 
Turner."  Then  follows  the  memorable  judgment  on 
colour :  "  I  think  that  the  first  approach  to  vicious- 
ness  of  colour  ...  is  commonly  indicated 
chiefly  by  a  prevalence  of  purple  and  absence  of  yel- 
low " ;  for  Ruskin  makes  us  aware  of  the  almost  se- 
cret gold  of  fine  colour.  Rubens  and  Turner  had, 
like  nature,  yellow  and  black  as  a  "  fundamental  op- 
position." In  the  chapter  "  Of  Truth  of  Chiaro- 
scuro "  Ruskin  writes : 

"  If  we  have  to  express  vivid  light,  our  first  aim 
must  be  to  get  the  shadows  sharp  and  visible ;  and 
this  is  not  to  be  done  by  blackness,  .  .  .  but  by 
keeping  them  perfectly  flat,  keen,  and  even.  A  very 
pale  shadow,  if  it  be  kept  flat,  if  it  conceal  the  details 
of  the  object  it  crosses,  if  it  be  grey  and  cold  com- 
pared with  their  colour,  and  very  sharp-edged,  will  be 
far  more  conspicuous,  and  make  everything  out  of  it 
look  a  great  deal  more  like  sunlight  than  a  shadow 
ten  times  its  depth,  shaded  off  at  the  edge,  and  con-, 


30  JOHN    RUSK.IN 

founded  with  the  colour  of  the  object  on  which  it 
falls.  Now  the  old  masters  of  the  Italian  school 
.  .  .  directly  reverse  the  principle ;  they  blacken 
their  shadows  till  the  picture  becomes  quite  appalling, 
and  everything  in  it  is  invisible ;  but  they  make  a 
point  of  losing  their  edges,  and  carrying  them  off  by 
gradation." 

Turner  will  keep  the  shadows  "  clear  and  distinct, 
and  make  them  felt  as  shadows,  though  they  are  so 
faint  that,  but  for  their  decisive  forms,  we  should  not 
have  observed  them  for  darkness  at  all."  Turner's 
shadows  are,  like  nature's,  shot  with  light. 

"Words  are  not  accurate  enough,  nor  delicate 
enough,  to  express  or  trace  the  constant,  all-pervading 
influence  of  the  finer  and  vaguer  shadows  throughout 
his  works,  that  thrilling  influence  which  gives  to  the 
light  they  leave  its  passion  and  its  power." 

Three  chapters  record  the  study  of  the  three  re- 
gions of  cloud — the  "  neglected  upper  sky "  (neg- 
lected until  Turner  drew  the  cirrus),  the  middle 
cloud,  and  the  rain-cloud.  There  is  the  noblest  pleas- 
ure in  the  writer's  confession  that  he  has  to  find  the 
same  words  in  describing  a  foreground  of  nature's 
and  a  foreground  of  Turner's,  and  that  delight  is  sensi- 
bly expressed  in  the  paragraphs  on  the  real  and  authentic 
skies,  closing  with  Turner,  who  had  more  knowledge 
of  all  essential  truth  u  in  every  wreath  of  vapour 
than  composed  the  whole  stock  of  heavenly  informa- 
tion which  lasted  Cuyp  and  Claude  their  lives." 
Turner  has  infinity  in  forms  of  cloud,  too  mysterious 
— in  wave  of  cloud  and  light — to  be  tested  by  the 


"MODERN  PAINTERS"  31 

eye :  infinity  outsoaring  the  mere  numbers  achieved 
by  lesser  painters.  "  For  .  .  .  the  greatest  num- 
ber is  no  nearer  to  infinity  than  the  least,  if  it  be  defi- 
nite number,"  while  infinity  is  reached  by  the  mere 
hints  of  the  variety  and  obscurity  of  truth.  This  is 
in  the  upper  heavens;  the  lower  heavens  of  the  rain- 
cloud  have  been  the  material  of  nearly  all  the  bad 
pictures  in  all  the  schools  :  the  two  windy  Gaspar 
Poussins  in  our  National  Gallery,  for  example : 

"  Massive  concretions  of  ink  and  indigo,  wrung 
and  twisted  very  hard,  apparently  in  a  vain  effort,  to 
get  some  moisture  out  of  them ;  bearing  up  coura- 
geously and  successfully  against  a  wind  whose  effects 
on  the  trees  in  the  foreground  can  be  accounted  for 
only  on  the  supposition  that  they  are  all  of  the  india- 
rubber  species." 

But  Ruskin  gives  some  praise  to  modern  artists — 
Cox  and  De  Wint  and  Copley  Fielding — "  before  we 
ascend  the  solitary  throne." 

After  the  heavens  come  the  heavenly  mountains, 
whereof,  at  this  early  age,  Ruskin  had  studied  the 
whole  organisation,  to  find  it,  with  a  rapture  of  recog- 
nition, confessed  in  the  work  of  Turner  and  suggested 
in  every  lightest  line.  In  these  chapters  the  subject 
is  less  closely  a  piece  of  reasoning  than  in  the  hard, 
urgent,  and  busy  first  chapters,  upon  which  I  have 
dwelt  at  length  because  of  their  singular  importance  ; 
but  the  motive  is  still  explanation,  demonstration  ;  the 
paragraph  is  hard  at  work,  and  only  at  the  closes  do 
we  find  the  relaxation  of  beauty.  In  this  book  Ruskin 


32  JOHN    RUSKIN 

does  not  precisely  decorate  his  construction  j  he  rather 
adds  ornament  with  a  punctual  afterthought,  and  it  is 
doubtless  these  buoyant  and  conspicuous  flowers  of 
prose  that  took  the  eye  of  the  public  and  gained  so 
much  and  so  prompt  admiration  for  Modern  Painters. 
But  throughout  these  chapters  the  sense  of  vitality 
increases.  It  is  as  though  the  searching  grasp  upon  the 
essential  history,  law,  and  spirit  of  things  gave  him  a 
natural  security,  so  that  rising  from  the  past  of  the 
streams,  the  origin  of  the  clouds,  and  the  roots  of  the 
mountains,  his  intelligence  is,  as  it  were,  bound  to 
understand  or  conceive  no  other  ranges  of  hills  or 
clouds  than  those  which  are  lifted  on  the  earth  and  in 
the  skies  according  to  inevitable  law.  That  is,  the 
mountains  of  Salvator  Rosa  may  have,  as  he  says, 
"  holes  in  them  but  no  valleys  ;  protuberances  and  ex- 
crescences, but  no  parts " ;  but  Ruskin,  student  of 
the  profound  nature  of  the  rocks,  shows  us  authentic 
valleys,  and  knows  the  parts  of  the  mountains  as  frag- 
ments of  the  unity  of  the  earth.  In  the  beautiful 
chapter  "  Of  the  Foreground  "  it  is  worth  noting,  oc- 
curs a  brief  phrase  characteristic  of  the  prose — a  der- 
ogation not  so  much  from  Johnson  as  from  Gibbon 
— that  was  the  common  language  of  letters,  the  refuse 
of  an  English  style,  profusely  ready  to  the  hand  of 
every  writer  in  the  middle  of  the  century,  and  en- 
cumbered the  way  even  of  one  who  was  to  purge  the 
refuse  from  so  many  kinds  of  floors  : 

u  A  steep  bank  of  loose  earth  .  .  .  exposed  to 
the  weather,  contains  in  it  .  .  .  features  capable 
of  giving  high  gratification  to  a  careful  observer." 


"  MODERN    PAINTERS  "  33 

As  a  suggestion  of  the  study  of  organic  simplicity 
this  fine  chapter  on  foreground  is  rich  in  a  sense  of 
drawing  which  the  reader  takes  from  the  strong  fingers 
of  the  writer.  Capable  of  this  hold  upon  the  forms, 
the  growth,  the  perspectives,  the  floor  of  the  world, 
and  the  ranks  of  all  erections,  that  hand  could  cer- 
tainly not  refrain  from  the  gesture  of  contempt  before 
the  foregrounds  of  Salvator  Rosa,  all  emphatic  and  all 
inorganic.  With  indignation  and  wit  their  condem- 
nation is  flicked  at  them  in  twenty  examples.  But  in 
the  following  chapters  "  Of  Truth  of  Water,"  there 
is  of  course  less  of  organic  design  and  more  of  the 
painter's  vision  of  inorganic  and  various  unity,  except 
in  the  pages  that  treat,  with  a  mathematical  calculation, 
of  reflections.  This  section  of  his  work,  Ruskin  tells 
us,  he  approached  despondently,  because,  whilst  he 
could  understand  why  men  admired  Salvator's  rocks, 
Claude's  foregrounds,  Hobbema's  trees,  and  whilst  he 
perceived  in  these  things  "  a  root  which  seems  right 
and  legitimate,"  he  knew  not  what  the  sea  of  nature 
could  be  in  the  eyes  of  men  who  admired  the  seas  of 
Backhuysen. 

It  is  curious  to  see  how  in  this  essay  on  the  painting 
of  waters  the  faith  in  the  perfectibility — I  wish  I 
knew  a  word  to  express  rather  the  capability-of-per- 
petual-progress-in-a-direction-of-perfection ;  let  me 
take  perfectibility  with  that  meaning — how  the  faith 
in  this  energy  and  single  direction  of  human  things, 
which  inspires  Ruskin's  political  economy,  mountain 
drawing,  and  foreground  painting,  and  compels  him  to 
work  for  the  replies  to  unanswerable  questions,  renders 


34  JOHN    RUSKIN 

him  ill-satisfied  with  the  simple  and  single  painting  of 
calm  waters,  which  painters  of  moderate  powers  are 
able  to  do  artistically,  giving  keen  pleasure  thereby, 
but  giving  it  easily,  and  urges  him  to  study  rather  the 
painting  of  the  broken  sea,  the  shifting  surface,  and 
the  cataract.  The  question  arises  in  the  reader's 
mind  yet  again  whether  this  noble  teaching,  which 
would,  if  it  were  possible,  make  another  Turner,  has 
not  in  fact  made,  in  the  lower  places,  many  bad 
painters.  And  yet  his  refutation  of  the  bad  painters 
of  a  quite  different  kind — those  whom  his  teaching 
did  not  make  and  could  not  make — and  his  immediate 
appeal  to  the  nature  they  disintegrated  by  the  shatter- 
ing effect  of  their  negligence  and  the  insolence  of  their 
reconstruction,  are  true  master's  work  in  this  section 
on  the  sea,  and  in  that  which  follows,  on  vegetation. 
Such  is  the  lesson  on  the  passage  of  the  cataract  from 
the  spring  to  the  fall,  when  the  parabolic  curve  ceases, 
whereas  the  false  painters  carry  that  curve  to  the  end 
and  make  their  water  look  active  where  it  should  be 
wildly  subject  to  gravitation.  Such  is  the  study  of  the 
waves  seen,  from  the  sea  shoreward,  not  as  successive 
breakers,  but  as  the  self-same  water  repeating  its 
crash  with  the  perturbed  spirit  of  the  sea.  Such  also 
is  the  study  of  the  top  of  the  nodding  wave  when  "  the 
water  swings  and  jumps  along  the  ridge  like  a  shaken 
chain."  Such  is  the  history  of  the  growth  of  a  tree, 
and  the  statement  of  the  laws  of  its  delimitation  of 
outline,  and  of  its  angles,  which  the  wildest  wind  that 
ever  blew  on  earth  cannot  take  out,  though  from  a 
twig  but  an  inch  thick,  whereas  Caspar  Poussin's  wind 


"  MODERN    PAINTERS  "  35 

stretches  the  branches  in  curves.  Of  his  sea-chapter, 
Ruskin  himself  says  in  a  note :  "  It  is  a  good  study  of 
wild  weather;  but  utterly  feeble  in  comparison  to 
the  few  words  by  which  any  of  the  great  poets  will 
describe  sea.  .  .  .  There  is  nothing  in  sea  de- 
scription, detailed,  like  Dickens's  storm  in  l  David  Cop- 
perfield.'  " 

In  this  book,  as  in  others,  Ruskin  (perhaps,  as  I 
have  suggested,  for  lack  of  music,  and  in  default, 
therefore,  of  a  sense  of  the  separateness  of  an  art 
that  imitates  nothing)  spends  the  riches  of  his  mind 
upon  the  perpetual,  and  in  some  kind  insoluble,  ques- 
tion as  to  the  imitation  and  selection  of  nature  in 
painting.  Upon  this  he  has  said  many  things — con- 
tending things  as  even  a  careful  student  may  hold, 
contrary  things  as  the  careless  will  continue  to  think. 
May  we  not  regret  the  arduous  thought  spent  upon 
an  ambiguous  dispute  that  is  nearly  an  ambiguous 
quarrel  ?  If  he  had  been  learned  in  music,  an  art 
wherein  such  contention  finds  no  place,  would  he 
have  made  it  the  centre  of  his  argument  on  painting  ? 


CHAPTER  III 

"  MODERN    PAINTERS  " 
THE  SECOND   VOLUME   (1846) 

"  THE  Second  Volume  of  Modern  Painters  which, 
though  in  affected  language,  yet  with  sincere  and  very 
deep  feeling,  expresses  the  first  and  fundamental  law 
respecting  human  contemplation  of  the  natural  phe- 
nomena under  whose  influence  we  exist — that  they 
can  only  be  seen  with  their  properly  belonging  joy 
and  interpreted  up  to  the  measure  of  proper  human 
intelligence,  when  they  are  accepted  as  the  work  and 
the  gift  of  a  Living  Spirit  greater  than  our  own  " — so 
runs  Ruskin's  description  of  this  book.  It  passes  to 
the  study  of  the  Theoretic  Faculty,  and  teaches  us  to 
account  for  the  beauty  we  are  formed  to  perceive  by 
referring  it  to  the  attributes  of  God.  In  front  of  this 
essay  stands  a  moral  apology  for  art,  as  accessory  to 
the  "  human  dignity  and  heavenward  duty  "  of  man- 
kind, informing  the  spirit  of  the  artist  by  "  the  incor- 
ruptible and  earnest  pride  which  no  applause,  no  rep- 
robation, can  blind  to  its  shortcomings,  or  beguile  of 
its  hope."  Spirituality  and  morality  have  done  ill  to 
forego  their  divine  claim  to  that  art  whereto  they  had 
a  right  not  only  of  authority  but  of  very  origin  and 
essence.  And  in  the  literally  divine  gift  of  art  is  im- 
plied the  responsibility  of  choice,  so  that  men  are 
36 


"MODERN  PAINTERS"  37 

bound  to  authentic  and  incorrupt  beauty  in  art  as  they 
are  bound  to  justice  in  action.  The  happiness  which 
the  senses  and  their  spirit  take  in  the  good  which  they 
contemplate  and  follow  is  itself,  by  its  very  energy,  a 
sure  rule  of  choice ;  "  it  clasps  what  it  loves  so  hard, 
that  it  crushes  it  if  it  be  hollow."  And  this  happi- 
ness, far  too  high  to  be  called  "  aesthetic,"  Ruskin 
names  the  Theoretic  Faculty. 

"  We  must  advance,  as  we  live  on,  from  what  is 
brilliant  to  what  is  pure,  and  from  what  is  promised 
to  what  is  fulfilled,  and  from  what  is  our  strength  to 
what  is  our  crown,  only  observing  in  all  things  how 
that  which  is  indeed  wrong,  and  to  be  cut  up  from  the 
root,  is  dislike  [of  natural  things]  and  not  affection." 

Beauty  is  "  the  bread  of  the  soul,"  for  which  vir- 
ginal hunger  is  renewed  every  morning.  And  good 
genius  was  infallibly  imaginative  in  the  days  before 
men  had  "  begun  to  bring  to  the  cross  foot  their  sys- 
tems instead  of  their  sorrow."  From  this  noble  doc- 
trine to  the  conclusion  that  a  false  and  impious  man 
could  not  be  a  great  imaginative  painter  (a  judgment 
that  has  been  cast  in  Ruskin's  teeth  a  thousand  times), 
the  logic  of  a  young  man  carried  him,  not  in  haste 
indeed  but  with  the  current  of  deliberate  and  inten- 
tional decision.  "  I  do  not  think,"  said  Socrates, 
"  that  any  one  who  should  now  hear  us,  even  though 
he  were  a  comic  poet,  would  say  that  I  talk  idly  or 
discourse  on  matters  that  concern  me  not " ;  but  the 
comic,  or  more  properly  the  derisive,  humour  of  Eng- 
lish writers  has  not  forborne  to  accuse  Ruskin  of  that 


38  JOHN    RUSK.IN 

which  Socrates  had  confidence  would  be  forborne  in 
his  own  regard :  to  charge  with  vanity  an  inquiry  that 
concerned  man  and  the  honour  of  his  works.  And 
if  the  question  has  been  held  so  vain,  what  common 
contempt  has  not  mocked  the  answer  framed  in  the 
too  instant  need  that  a  great  mind  had  to  be  satisfied  ! 
In  preparation  of  his  task  of  referring  what  we  see 
to  be  beautiful  to  what  we  believe  to  be  Eternal,  Rus- 
kin  stays  upon  the  old  speculation  as  to  the  nature  of 
the  beauty  that  so  delights  our  discerning  senses  as  to 
cause  us  to  refer  the  felicity  to  qualities  of  God. 
Among  attempted  "  definitions  "  of  beauty  (which  are 
descriptions  rather  than  definitions)  he  does  not  cite 
the  scholastic  sentence  u  Splendour  of  Truth,"  which 
would  have  pleased  him  had  he  known  it,  but  which 
does  not  explain  why  the  aspect  of  truth  is  only 
sometimes  splendid  ;  he  does  quote  the  vaguer  "  kind 
of  felicity  "  of  Bacon,  which  fails  to  explain  the  kind. 
"  Nothing  is  more  common,"  Ruskin  says  in  the 
following  volume,  "  than  to  hear  people  who  desire  to 
be  thought  philosophical,  declare  that  4  beauty  is 
truth  '  and  4  truth  is  beauty.'  I  would  most  earnestly 
beg  every  sensible  person  who  hears  such  an  assertion 
made,  to  nip  the  germinating  philosopher  in  his  am- 
biguous bud ;  and  beg  him,  if  he  really  believes  his 
own  assertion,  never  henceforward  to  use  two  words 
for  the  same  thing."  The  succeeding  chapters  on 
44  Unity,"  "  Infinity,"  "  Repose,"  "  Moderation,"  are 
masterly  in  thought,  with  passages  close  and  fine,  as 
that  which  discovers  the  "  reason  of  the  agreeable- 
ness  "  of  a  curve — that  it  u  divides  itself  infinitely  by 


"  MODERN    PAINTERS  "  39 

its  changes  of  direction  "  ;  that  which  asserts  "  the 
inseparable  dependence  "  of  spirits  on  each  other's 
being,  and  their  "  essential  and  perfect  depending  on 
their  Creator's  "  ;  and  the  noble  page  on  "  Unity  "  : 
Subjectional  Unity  of  things  submitted  to  the  same 
influence,  which  is  that  of  clouds  in  the  wind  ;  Unity 
of  Origin,  which  is  that  of  branches  of  a  tree ; 
Unity  of  Sequence,  which  is  that  of  continued  lines 
or  the  notes  following  to  make  a  melody ;  and  Unity 
of  Membership,  "  which  is  the  unity  of  things  sep- 
arately imperfect  in  a  perfect  whole,"  as  in  the  notes 
joining  to  make  a  harmony,  and,  in  spiritual  creatures, 
their  essential  life  of  happiness  in  the  Creator  Spirit. 
Inordinate  variety  (such  as  that  of  the  colouring  of 
some  tropical  birds)  is  a  defect  of  the  beauty  of  Unity. 
The  dark  background  is  presented  to  us  (and  here 
Ruskin  seems  perilously  to  strain  a  principle  in  the 
application)  as  a  denial  of  the  beauty  of  Infinity. 

"I  think  if  there  be  any  one  grand  division,  by 
which  it  is  at  all  possible  to  set  the  productions  of 
painting,  so  far  as  their  mere  plan  or  system  is  con- 
cerned, on  our  right  and  left  hands,  it  is  this  of  light 
and  dark  background,  of  heaven  light  or  of  object 
light." 

The  abruptness  and  confidence  of  the  theological 
assertions,  Ruskin  protests  in  a  note,  became  painful 
to  him  in  after  years,  but  their  matter  is  involved  in 
every  thought  of  this  essay.  Nothing  else  is  retracted 
in  the  revision  except  something  of  the  veneration 
given  to  Michelangiolo,  of  the  love  given  to  Raphael 


4O  JOHN    RUSK.IN 

and  to  Francia,  and  of  a  young  man's  love  of  the  for- 
est and  the  wild  landscape,  in  impatience  of  the  lovely 
country  of  agriculture. 

The  latter  part  of  the  second  volume  is  principally 
a  treatise  on  "  Imagination  " — Associative,  Penetra- 
tive, and  Contemplative — a  great  work  of  true  intel- 
lectual passion ;  and  the  poverty  of  any  words  that 
try  to  present  the  argument  by  way  of  mere  sketch 
must  discourage  me  from  the  attempt ;  howbeit  the 
task  I  have  set  myself  throughout  is  no  less  than  this 
almost  impossible  summary,  the  reader  will  do  well  to 
be  more  than  ever  on  his  guard  in  order  to  take  the 
citations  as  signs  and  fragments  of  the  perfect  life  of 
the  work.  Let  it  be  said  at  once  that  no  man  could 
think  out  the  multitude  of  truths  without  the  use  of 
opposing  phrases.  It  would  have  been  well  if  in  the 
subsequent  revision  for  later  issues  (especially  the 
thorough  revision  of  1883)  Ruskin  had  altered  the 
mere  diction  of  the  doctrine  as  to  choice  in  art.  The 
reader  must  be  warned  not  to  put  this  amongst  the 
reputed  "  inconsistencies  "  until  he  has  read  the  fourth 
volume,  where  the  paradox  is  explained.  The  real 
"  inconsistencies  "  are  few,  and  only  a  reader  baffled 
by  the  consistency  (and  there  is  nothing  so  exacting, 
so  difficult,  so  various,  as  the  consistency  of  a  com- 
plete theory,  nothing  so  overwhelming  to  a  slothful 
student)  has  ever  diverted  himself  by  counting  them. 
At  the  outset  Ruskin  encounters — by  another  of  those 
originally  paltry  accidents  that  are  of  use — the  defini- 
tion of  Imagination  by  Dugald  Stewart,  who  does  not 
know  imagination  from  composition,  or  rccomposi- 


"MODERN  PAINTERS"  41 

tion,  and  thinks  imagination  in  landscape  to  consist 
in  the  imaginary  landscape  of  gathering  or  colloca- 
tion. It  is  not  this,  as  no  one  needs  to  be  told  to- 
day, but  we  owe  our  knowledge  in  great  part  to  Rus- 
kin's  contention;  and  the  word  imagination  itself 
(originally  "  aesthetic,"  or  sensual,  and  defective)  is 
what  it  is  now  by  his  own  act  of  transformation. 
Imagination  does  not  combine,  but  is  pre-engaged 
upon  more  vital  work.  In  fact  the  chapter  on  Im- 
agination Associative  does  some  of  its  most  effectual 
work  in  its  witty  history  of  the  drawing  of  a  tree  by 
a  painter  without  imagination : 

"  We  will  suppose  him,  for  better  illustration  of 
the  point  in  question,  to  have  good  feeling  and  correct 
knowledge  of  the  nature  of  trees.  He  probably  lays 
on  his  paper  such  a  general  form  as  he  knows  to  be 
characteristic  of  the  tree  to  be  drawn,  and  such  as  he 
believes  will  fall  in  agreeably  with  the  other  masses 
of  his  picture.  .  .  .  When  this  form  is  set  down, 
he  assuredly  finds  it  has  done  something  he  did  not 
intend  it  to  do.  It  has  mimicked  some  prominent 
line,  or  overpowered  some  necessary  mass.  He  be- 
gins pruning  and  changing,  and,  after  several  experi- 
ments, succeeds  in  obtaining  a  form  which  does  no 
material  mischief  to  any  other.  To  this  form  he  pro- 
ceeds to  attach  a  trunk,  and,  working  probably  on  a 
received  notion  or  rule  (for  the  unimaginative  painter 
never  works  without  a  principle)  that  tree-trunks 
ought  to  lean  first  one  way  and  then  the  other  as  they 
go  up,  and  ought  not  to  stand  under  the  middle  of  the 
tree,  he  sketches'  a  serpentine  form  of  requisite  pro- 
priety ;  when  it  has  gone  up  far  enough — that  is,  till 
it  looks  disagreeably  long,  he  will  begin  to  ramify  it  j 


42  JOHN    RUSKIN 

and  if  there  be  another  tree  in  the  picture  with  two 
large  branches,  he  knows  that  this,  by  all  the  laws  of 
composition,  ought  to  have  three  or  four,  or  some 
different  number ;  and  because  he  knows  that  if  three 
or  four  branches  start  from  the  same  point  they  will 
look  formal,  therefore  he  makes  them  start  from 
points  one  above  another;  and  because  equal  dis- 
tances are  improper,  therefore  they  shall  start  at  un- 
equal distances.  When  they  are  fairly  started,  he 
knows  they  must  undulate  or  go  backwards  and  for- 
wards, which  accordingly  he  makes  them  do  at  ran- 
dom ;  and  because  he  knows  that  all  forms  ought  to 
be  contrasted,  he  makes  one  bend  down  while  the 
other  three  go  up.  The  three  that  go  up,  he  knows, 
must  not  go  up  without  interfering  with  each  other, 
and  so  he  makes  two  of  them  cross.  He  thinks  it 
also  proper  that  there  should  be  variety  of  character 
in  them ;  so  he  makes  the  one  that  bends  down  grace- 
ful and  flexible,  and,  of  the  two  that  cross,  he  splinters 
one  and  makes  a  stump  of  it.  He  repeats  the  process 
among  the  more  complicated  minor  boughs,  until 
coming  to  the  smallest,  he  thinks  further  care  un- 
necessary, but  draws  them  freely,  and  by  chance. 
Having  to  put  on  the  foliage,  he  will  make  it  flow 
properly  in  the  direction  of  the  tree's  growth  ;  he  will 
make  all  the  extremities  graceful,  but  will  be  tor- 
mented by  finding  them  come  all  alike,  and  at  last 
will  be  obliged  to  spoil  a  number  of  them  altogether 
in  order  to  obtain  opposition.  They  will  not,  how- 
ever, be  united  in  this  their  spoliation,  but  will  remain 
uncomfortably  separate  and  individually  ill-tempered. 
He  consoles  himself  by  the  reflection  that  it  is  unnat- 
ural for  all  of  them  to  be  equally  perfect.  Now,  I 
suppose  that  through  the  whole  of  this  process  he  has 
been  able  to  refer  to  his  definite  memory  or  concep- 
tion of  nature  for  every  one  of  the  fragments  he  has 
successively  added." 


"  MODERN    PAINTERS  "  43 

Ruskin's  own  tree-drawing — stem-drawing  especially 
— has  an  extraordinary  power ;  so  has  his  word,  living 
with  the  life  of  the  tree,  as  when  he  tells  you  of  the 
lower  bough  stretched  towards  you  with  somewhat  of 
the  action  of  an  open  hand,  palm  upwards,  and  the 
fingers  a  little  bent. 

The  penetrative  form  of  the  imaginative  faculty,  he 
tells  us,  is  proved  in  its  dealing  with  matter  and  with 
spirit.  It  takes  a  grasp  of  things  by  the  heart,  seizes 
outward  things  from  within,  and  refers  them  "  to  that 
inner  secret  spring  of  which  the  hold  is  never  lost " 
by  ^schylus,  Homer,  Dante,  or  Shakespeare.  "  How 
did  Shakespeare  know  that  Virgilia  could  not  speak  ?  " 
Contemplative  imagination  is  Shelley's  faculty ;  in 
painting,  it  presents  the  generic  or  symbolical  form  of 
things  capable  of  various  accidents ;  and  no  fidelity 
of  surface  imitation,  such  as  Landseer's,  can  atone  for 
the  loss  of  the  larger  relations — of  light  or  colour, 
for  example — brought  about  by  lack  of  imaginative 
vision.  Contemplative  imagination  is  able,  having 
climbed  the  sycamore,  and  waiting,  to  perceive  "  the 
Divine  form  among  the  mortal  crowd  " ;  how  much 
more  it  knows  in  the  breaking  of  bread  cannot  be 
told.  "  Though  we  cannot,  while  we  feel  deeply, 
reason  shrewdly,  yet  I  doubt  if,  except  when  we  feel 
deeply,  we  can  ever  comprehend  fully."  (One  wishes 
it  were  lawful,  in  quoting,  to  leave  out  such  a  futile 
word  as  the  "  ever  "  in  this  sentence.)  And  the  in- 
tellect is  said  to  sit,  in  the  hour  of  imagination,  upon 
"  its  central  throne."  Incidentally  we  have  this  keen 
point  made  of  one  of  the  differences  of  imagination 


44  JOHN    RUSKIN 

and  fancy :  fancy  is  sequent  and — mobile  herself — 
deals  with  the  mobility  (I  suppose  mobility  rather 
than  action,  wherewith  imagination  is  mightily  con- 
cerned) of  things ;  and  perhaps  I  may  add  that  Keats 
judged  more  wisely  than  he  knew  of  the  rather 
common  fancy  occupying  him  for  the  moment  when 
he  wrote 

"  Ever  let  the  fancy  roam ; 
Pleasure  never  is  at  home." 

Doubtless  imaginative  joy  is  everywhere  supremely  at 
home.  "  For  the  moment,"  I  say — for  the  brief  mo- 
ment; contemplative  imagination  is  in  Keats  in  large 
and  intense  perfection. 

"  Ideal  "  and  "  Real  "  are  words  that  represent  an- 
other subject  of  old  thought  whereon  most  men  have 
opinions.  Let  me  say  briefly  (since  this  may  now  be 
said  more  briefly  than  when  Ruskin  said  it)  that  the 
doctrine  of  Modern  Painters  would  have  us  to  con- 
demn that  generalising  which  is  a  combination,  an  as- 
sembling of  individual  characters,  and  is  impotent ; 
and  that  it  would  have  us  to  seek  the  ideal  of  each 
individual,  by  the  mental  study  of  the  hieroglyphics 
of  his  sacred  history,  and  by  the  hard  working  por- 
traiture, "  the  necessary  and  sterling  basis  of  all  ideal 
art,"  practised  by  Raphael,  Titian,  Tintoretto,  Ghir- 
landajo,  Masaccio,  John  Bellini;  and  not  by  Guido 
or  the  Caracci.  The  lack  of  the  individual  ideal, 
with  the  triviality  of  accessories,  has  filled  the  English 
Academy  "  with  such  a  school  of  portraiture  as  must 
make  the  people  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  shame 


"MODERN  PAINTERS"  45 

of  their  descendants,  and  the  butt  of  all  time."  In 
treating  of  the  vital  and  ideal  beauty  of  man  Ruskin 
says  that  the  purity  of  flesh-painting  depends  on  the 
intensity  and  warmth  of  its  colour. 

The  second  volume,  finally,  is  very  distinctly,  and 
indeed  suddenly,  patched  with  the  style  of  Hooker, 
whom  Ruskin  had  studied  with  full  imitative  inten- 
tion. But  the  normal  and  working  style  is  purely  of 
its  own  day  as  his  genius  renewed  the  day  and  the 
hour — that  is,  it  is  fresh,  full-charged,  and  exact ; 
and  as  unlike  anything  in  the  past  ages  as  it  is  unlike 
the  more  hesitating,  gradated,  and  reinforced  propriety 
learned  by  some  later  English  from  some  later  French 
writers. 


CHAPTER  IV 

"  MODERN    PAINTERS  " 
THE  THIRD  AND   FOURTH   VOLUMES   (1856) 

THE  third  volume  was  written  after  ten  years. 
Turner  had  died  too  soon  to  receive  the  amends  of 
the  first  volume  for  the  rash  blame  that  had  embittered 
his  life;  and  from  the  irreparable  cruelty  Ruskin's 
heart  had  taken  the  wound  that  the  young  heart  ac- 
cepts from  the  world ;  but  there  were,  in  their  meas- 
ure, men  whom  it  was  not  too  late  to  praise,  and  the 
generous  fear  lest  one  or  two  true  painters  should  be 
denied  their  due  until  they  also  had  passed  from  the 
communion  of  men  upon  earth  led  Ruskin  somewhat 
far  in  his  praises  of  modern  painters  who  were  not 
Turners.  As  a  prelude  stands  an  essay  "Touching 
the  Grand  Style,"  in  controversy  with  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds  and  with  Dr.  Johnson,  his  ally.  It  is  with 
no  irreverence  towards  the  master  whose  painting  was 
a  refutation  of  everything  shallow  that  he  took  in 
hand  to  speak  or  read,  and  with  no  irreverence  to 
Johnson,  that  a  reader,  fresh  from  the  searching  thought 
of  Ruskin,  confesses  the  Discourse  here  examined  to 
be  an  instance  of  the  commonplace  thinking  of  the 
eighteenth  century — commonplace  (let  the  paradox  be 
allowed)  to  the  degree  of  falsity.  Loose  reasoning  in 
exact  English  is  here,  as  where  Sir  Joshua  says  that 
46 


"  MODERN    PAINTERS  "  47 

the  Grand  Style  of  Michelangiolo,  "the  Homer  of 
painting,"  "  has  the  least  of  common  nature,"  whereas 
it  is  common  and  general  nature  that  Sir  Joshua's 
doctrine  of  the  Grand  Style  does  logically  allow,  and 
the  distinction  of  individual  character  that  it  forbids. 
If  the  comparison  with  Homer  were  a  just  one,  then 
the  heroic  or  impossible  in  art  must  be  mingled  (as 
Ruskin  proves),  with  the  very  unheroic  and  quite  pos- 
sible, with  details  of  cookery,  amongst  others;  and 
having  shown  the  figure  of  his  hero,  the  painter  ought 
to  "  spend  the  greater  part  of  his  time  (as  Homer  the 
greater  number  of  his  verses)  in  elaborating  the  pat- 
tern on  his  shield."  Moreover  Sir  Joshua  and  the 
Doctor  think  they  have  profoundly  shaken  the  original 
idea  of  beauty  by  the  eighteenth-century  device  of  ex- 
plaining beauty  by  custom :  "  If  the  whole  world," 
they  say,  "  should  agree  that  Yes  and  No  should 
change  their  meanings,  Yes  would  then  deny  and  No 
would  affirm."  As  though  the  arbitrary  sign  of  a 
word  had  any  but  a  conventional  relation  to  the  thing 
signified ;  and  as  though  the  Yes  answered  to  the 
question  "  Do  two  and  two  make  four  ?  "  could  be 
changed  for  No  in  its  significance,  even  if  the  sound 
of  it  were  No ! 

In  regard  to  dignity  Ruskin  says: 

"  Paul  Veronese  opposes  the  dwarf  to  the  soldier, 
and  the  negress  to  the  queen ;  Shakespeare  places 
Caliban  beside  Miranda  and  Autolycus  beside  Perdita; 
but  the  vulgar  idealist  withdraws  his  beauty  to  the 
safety  of  the  saloon,  and  his  innocence  to  the  seclu- 
sion of  the  cloister,  ...  he  has  neither  courage 


48  JOHN    RUSKIN 

to  front  the  monster,  nor  wit  enough  to  furnish  the 
knave." 

Ruskin  finds  the  great  style  to  be  the  style  of  a  great 
painter,  and  knows  that  no  good  will  can  bring  it  to 
pass.  The  reader  may  remember  that  it  is  written  in 
the  Pb&do,  "  There  are,  say  those  who  preside  at  the 
mysteries,  many  wand-bearers,  but  few  inspired." 

The  recurrence  of  the  dispute  as  to  detail,  if  ever 
to  be  lamented,  is  hardly  so  in  this  third  volume, 
wherein  it  produces  some  memorable  sayings;  for 
example,  that  touches,  seeming  coarse  when  near  the 
eye,  are  put  on  by  a  fine  painter  with  the  calculation 
wherewith  an  archer  draws  his  bow — according  to  the 
distance,  "  the  spectator  seeing  nothing  but  the  strain 
of  the  strong  arm  " ;  and  that  "  the  best  drawing  in- 
volves a  wonderful  perception  and  expression  of  indis- 
tinctness." But  alas !  how  shall  I  attain  to  know,  in 
two  pictures,  the  indistinctness  that  is  merely  indis- 
tinctness from  that  which  is  wonderfully  perceived  to 
be  indistinct  ?  If,  a  little  further,  we  must  submit  to 
have  it  said  of  the  tender  Rembrandt  that  he  sacrifices 
to  one  light  and  its  relations  "  the  expression  of  every 
character  .  .  .  which  depends  on  tenderness  of 
shape  or  tint,"  we  submit  for  the  pleasure  of  reading, 
in  contrast,  of  Veronese's  "delicate  air"  and  "great 
system  of  spacious  truth." 

"  He  unites  all  ...  in  tenderest  balance, 
noting  in  each  hair's-breadth  of  colour,  not  merely 
what  its  Tightness  or  wrongness  is  in  itself,  but  what 
its  relation  is  .  .  . ;  restraining,  for  truth's  sake, 


"  MODERN    PAINTERS  "  49 

his  exhaustless  energy,  reigning  back,  for  truth's  sake, 
his  fiery  strength ;  veiling,  before  truth,  the  vanity  of 
brightness  ;  penetrating,  for  truth,  the  discouragement 
of  gloom." 

After  the  true  and  the  false  "  Grand  Styles  "  come 
considerations  of  true  and  false  ideals ;  and  I  take  from 
a  page  on  the  latter  this  witty  passage : 

"  A  modern  German,  without  invention,  .  .  . 
seeing  a  rapid  in  a  river,  will  immediately  devote 
the  remainder  of  the  day  to  the  composition  of 
dialogues  between  amorous  water  nymphs  and  un- 
happy mariners ;  while  the  man  of  true  invention, 
power,  and  sense  will,  instead,  set  himself  to  consider 
whether  the  rocks  in  the  river  could  have  their  points 
knocked  off,  or  the  boats  upon  it  be  made  with 
stronger  bottoms.  .  .  .  The  various  forms  of 
false  idealism  have  so  entangled  the  modern  mind, 
often  called,  I  suppose  ironically,  practical." 

Compare  with  this  the  permission  given,  two  pages 
later,  to  the  true  imagination  to  create  for  itself 
"  fairies  and  naiads,  and  other  such  fictitious  creatures." 
How  shall  the  reader  be  taught  to  feel,  with  Ruskin, 
an  infallible  moral  indignation  against  this  naiad  and 
an  infallible  moral  delight  in  that  ?  It  seems  to  me 
impossible.  One  falls  back  upon  the  sure  if  inex- 
plicable private  judgment :  "  this  ideal  poem  is  genius- 
work  and  beautiful,  and  that  ideal  poem  is  not."  But 
in  confessing  despair  of  learning  the  lesson  as  a  lesson 
(it  is  taught,  with  all  power,  purpose,  and  insistence, 
by  Ruskin,  as  a  lesson)  I  disclaim  the  insolence  of  re- 
proaching him  with  that  moral  passion  which  was  to 


5O  JOHN    RUSKIN 

his  mind    most  intelligible,  most  necessary,  and  an- 
gelically just. 

"  Purist  Idealism,"  "  Naturalist  Idealism,"  and 
"  Grotesque  Idealism  "  in  their  right  forms  are  studied 
next,  with  some  repetition,  but  also  with  almost  over- 
whelming variety.  Ruskin  adds  to  his  words  on  the 
authentic  imagination  these,  which,  when  they  are 
heard,  confer  the  vision  and  the  power:  "Write  the 
things  which  thou  hast  seen,  and  the  things  which 
are."  To  the  imagination  he  commits  the  study  of 
general  things,  of  special  things,  and  of  unique  things 
in  their  multitudes.  "The  choice  as  well  as  the 
vision  is  manifested  to  Homer,"  he  says  in  another 
place,  touching  on  the  controversy  that  runs  through- 
out. In  a  passage  which  has  truth  in  a  most  strange 
aspect,  he  avers  that  without  choice  a  great  painter 
may  paint  vain  and  paltry  things  "  at  a  sorrowful 
level,  somewhat  above  vulgarity.  It  is  only  when  the 
minor  painter  takes  them  on  his  easel  that  they  be- 
come things  for  the  universe  to  be  ashamed  of."  The 
chapter  on  the  Grotesque  is  altogether  delightful  and 
wonderful.  Grotesque  art  is  that  which  "arises 
from  healthful  but  irrational  play  of  the  imagination, 
or  from  irregular  and  accidental  contemplation  of  ter- 
rible things,  or  from  the  confusion  of  the  imagination 
by  the  presence  of  truths  which  it  cannot  wholly 
grasp  "  ;  in  the  last  case  it  is  "  altogether  noble." 

u  How  is  it  to  be  distinguished  from  the  false  and 
vicious  grotesque  which  results  from  idleness  instead 
of  noble  rest ;  from  malice,  instead  of  the  solemn  con- 
templation of  the  necessary  evil;  and  from  general 


"MODERN  PAINTERS"  51 

degradation  of  the  human  spirit,  instead  of  its  sub- 
jection, or  confusion,  by  thoughts  too  high  for  it  ?  " 

Ruskin  admits  that  "  the  vague  and  foolish  incon- 
sistencies of  undisciplined  dream  "  might  be  mistaken 
for  "  the  compelled  inconsistencies  of  thought ";  and 
he  teaches  us  the  difference  in  one  of  the  best,  most 
unmistakable,  most  imaginative,  and  most  conclusive 
of  all  the  lessons  in  his  books — that  of  the  two  griffins. 
The  drawings  of  the  Roman  griffin,  from  the  temple  of 
Antoninus  and  Faustina,  and  of  the  Lombard  griffin, 
from  the  Cathedral  of  Verona,  are  by  his  own  hand. 
The  "  classical "  griffin  has  technical  mastery  of 
composition,  collocation,  combination — the  secondary 
qualities  in  no  little  beauty,  but  Ruskin  takes  the  man 
who  wrought  it  through  the  experiment  and  piece- 
meal of  his  work  as  but  now  he  took  a  bad  draughts- 
man through  his  tree — with  exquisite  dramatic  sense 
of  the  man's  mind  and  action,  most  wittily,  with  a  wit 
of  the  very  fingers.  He  shows  how  the  lion  and  the 
eagle,  put  together,  have  been  missed  in  the  winged 
creature  with  its  trivial  eye,  and  its  foot  on  the  top  of 
a  flower.  Let  the  reader  remember  that  this  griffin 
was  famous,  and  that  no  one  had  perceived  the  Lom- 
bardic  griffin  until  Ruskin  studied  him.  No  piecemeal 
is  in  this  winged  creature.  u  He  is  not  merely  a  bit 
of  lion  and  a  bit  of  eagle,  but  whole  lion  incorporate 
with  whole  eagle."  He  has  the  carnivorous  teeth, 
u  and  the  peculiar  hanging  of  the  jaw  at  the  back, 
which  marks  the  flexible  mouth  "  ;  he  has  no  cocked 
ears,  like  the  other,  to  catch  the  wind  in  flight  (Ruskin 


52  JOHN    RUSKIN 

says  that  the  classical  griffin  would  have  an  ear-ache 
when  he  u  got  home  " — a  phrase  of  u  heart-easing 
mirth  ") ;  he — the  Lombard — has  the  throat,  the 
strength,  the  indolence  of  the  lion :  "  he  has  merely 
got  a  poisonous  winged  dragon  to  hold,  and  for  such 
a  little  matter  as  that,  he  may  as  well  do  it  lying 
down."  With  the  utmost  dramatic  sense  is  the  grasp 
on  the  dragon  told  in  this  fine  page,  to  which  the 
reader  is  bound  to  have  recourse  if  he  would  know 
true  griffinism  at  all.  "  Composing  legalism  does 
nothing  else  than  err."  The  passionate  imagination 
knows  not  how  to  transgress. 

From  the  chapters  on  "  Finish  "  let  us  clearly  learn 
that  what  Ruskin  calls  by  this  name  is  life — no  less. 
His  illustrations  of  Claude's  and  Constable's  tree- 
drawing  and  of  the  real  ajid  vital  growth  of  trees  are 
to  this  point ;  and  nowhere  is  the  extraordinary  power 
of  his  own  hand  more  manifest  than  in  the  plate 
"Strength  of  Old  Pine."  None  but  his  word  would 
describe  his  work.  "  The  Use  of  Pictures  "  (a  very 
knot  of  reasoning)  and  a  brief  history  of  the  human 
spirit  of  the  artist,  antique  and  modern,  bring  us  to 
the  famous  "  Pathetic  Fallacy."  This  fallacy  is  a 
fiction  (wanton,  fanciful,  imaginative,  or  more  purely 
passionate)  in  our  reading  of  natural  things  according 
to  the  feeling  of  our  own  hearts.  Obviously  it  is 
chiefly  poetry  that  is  here  in  question  ;  and  the  reader 
should  understand  that  Ruskin  is  not  writing  of  poets 
who  are  no  poets;  he  admits  two  orders  of  poets, 
but  no  third,  as  doubtless  a  musician  would  admit  two 
orders  of  musicians — two  very  arts  of  music,  two 


"MODERN  PAINTERS"  53 

muses — but  no  third ;  and  he  places — agreeing  therein 
with  the  greater  number  of  critics — one  order  higher 
than  the  other,  as  a  musician  need  not  do  in  contem- 
plating his  own  double-peaked  hill.  Ruskin  makes  an 
admirable  opposition  of  the  image  without  fallacy  of 
Dante  to  the  image  with  fallacy  of  Coleridge  ;  paus- 
ing for  a  moment  (only  a  moment,  for  the  chapter  is 
intended  to  treat  chiefly  of  noble  and  passionate  fal- 
lacy) at  the  fallacy  which  is  not  poetic  at  all  because 
it  is  assigned,  as  by  Pope,  to  the  wrong  passion,  and 
is  cold.  But  I  confess  all  this  reasoning  on  poetry 
seems  to  fail — not  impotently,  but  with  vital  effort, 
and  because  of  some  prohibition  from  the  beginning 
of  the  task — to  fail  to  prove  or  even  to  demonstrate 
anything  we  do  not  know,  or  to  disprove  anything 
we  feel.  A  whole  chapter  further  on,  for  instance, 
shows  Walter  Scott  to  be  better  than  a  sentimentalist, 
better  than  a  poet  who  works  with  difficulty,  better 
than  a  poet  who  is  self-conscious,  better  as  a  poet-seer 
than  a  mere  poet-thinker,  and  moreover  a  thorough 
representative  of  his  time  by  his  love  of  nature,  of  the 
past,  of  colour,  and  of  the  picturesque,  by  his  sadness 
and  lack  of  personal  faith,  and  so  forth.  But  at  the 
end  of  the  argument  we  shall  not  have  been  persuaded 
to  take  Scott  to  be  a  poet  possessed  of  the  spirit  of 
poetry.  The  essay,  however,  though  a  vain  persua- 
sion, is  an  excellent  commentary  ;  take  the  sentence, 
for  example,  which  explains  how  we  have  pleasure  in 
Kingsley's  fallacious  "  cruel  foam,  "  not  because  the 
words  "  fallaciously  describe  foam,  but  because  they 
faithfully  describe  sorrow."  The  chapter  has  been 


54  JOHN    RUSKIN 

popular,  for  it  reaches  none  of  the  inner  concentra- 
tions of  thought  that  make  Modern  Painters  arduous 
reading  to  a  real  reader.  The  chapter  following,  on 
"  Classical  Landscape,"  deals  also  with  poetry.  To 
the  question  whether  the  modern  with  his  fancy  does 
not  see  something  in  nature  that  Homer  could  not  see, 
Ruskin  replies  that  the  Greek  had  his  own  feeling — 
that  of  faith  and  not  of  fallacy.  u  He  never  says  the 
waves  rage,  or  the  waves  are  idle.  But  he  says  there 
is  somewhat  in,  and  greater  than,  the  waves,  which 
rages,  and  is  idle,  and  that  he  calls  a  god."  Nor  will 
Ruskin  consent  to  have  Homer's  Hera,  cuffing  the 
contentious  Artemis  about  the  ears,  too  much  inter- 
preted. Let  no  one  think  to  explain  away  "  my  real, 
running,  beautiful,  beaten  Diana,  into  a  moon  behind 
clouds."  Happy  too,  by  its  phrase,  in  the  finely 
elaborate  contrast  of  the  antique  and  the  modern 
spirit,  is  this  passage  on  the  Greek  and  the  gods: 

"  To  ask  counsel  of  them,  to  obey  them,  to  sacri- 
fice to  them,  to  thank  them  for  all  good,  this  was 
well ;  but  to  be  utterly  downcast  before  them,  or  not 
to  tell  them  his  mind  in  plain  Greek  if  they  seemed 
to  him  to  be  conducting  themselves  in  an  ungodly 
manner — this  would  not  be  well." 

And  happy  in  thought  is  a  passage  on  the  modern 
who  accepts  sympathy  from  nature  that  he  does  not 
believe  in,  and  gives  her  sympathy  that  he  does  not 
believe  in  (but  should  this  part  of  the  phrase  be  so 
positive  as  the  other  ?),  whereas  the  Greek  had  no 
sympathy  at  all  with  "  actual  wave  and  woody  fibre." 


"MODERN  PAINTERS"  55 

The  exquisite  chapter  on  "The  Plelds  "  traces  the 
history  of  the  landscape  of  vegetation,  ancient  and 
mediaeval,  discovers  the  first  sky  in  an  illuminated 
manuscript  and  the  first  leaf  in  its  borders — how  it  un- 
folded there ;  and  tracks  the  change  in  the  human 
spirit  in  regard  to  the  forest,  wherein  the  man  of  the 
Middle  Ages  looked  to  meet  with  an  enemy  in  am- 
bush or  a  bear,  whereas  the  ancient  "  expected  to  meet 
one  or  two  gods,  but  no  banditti "  ;  and  "  The  Rocks  " 
is  a  magnificent  study  of  mountains  as  man  beheld 
them  in  the  ancient  world  and  in  the  altered  ages. 
Ruskin  gives  modern  man,  with  his  love  of  breeze, 
of  shadows,  of  the  ruling  and  dividing  clouds,  over  to 
the  gibe  of  Aristophanes — that  he  would  "  speak  in- 
geniously concerning  smoke,"  that  he  disbelieves  in 
Jupiter,  and  crowns  the  whirlwind.  Exquisite  play 
is  mingled  with  all  the  philosophy  of  these  historic 
chapters.  A  summary  but  splendid  history  of  colour 
in  the  arts — a  spiritual  history  of  the  colours  man 
has  loved — opens  the  question — treated  at  length  by 
other  pens  long  after  Modern  Painters  was  written — 
of  the  sense  of  colour  in  Antiquity;  and  the  study  re- 
turns to  Turner,  the  man  who  was  first  in  the  es- 
sentially modern  painting  of  nature  in  place  of  the 
human  form,  as  Bacon  was  first  in  the  modern  study 
of  nature  instead  of  the  human  mind.  But  in  "  The 
Moral  of  Landscape  "  Turner  himself  and  all  lovers 
of  nature  are  arraigned  with  extreme  austerity  to  justify, 
or  rather  to  excuse,  that  passion  for  landscape  where- 
with some  of  the  greatest  of  human  intellects  have 
not  been  charged ;  and  it  is  only  after  a  meditation, 


56  JOHN    RUSKIN 

full  of  misgiving,  nay,  of  suffering,  and  courage,  and 
after  trying  all  things — all  human  wandering,  from 
that  of  the  truant  schoolboy  studying  nature  despite 
of  duty  and  discipline,  to  that  of  the  poet,  astray  on 
one  of  the  infinite  ways,  in  one  of  the  infinite  direct- 
tions,  of  loss — it  is  only  then  that  this  teacher  permits 
himself  to  bless  the  human  love  of  nature.  With 
u  trembling  hope  "  and  the  profound  decision  that  is 
to  be  won  from  the  heart  of  hearts  of  a  dreadful 
doubt,  he  calls  finally  upon  the  love  and  knowledge 
of  landscape  to  mend  specifically  the  foolish  spirit  of 
a  century  bent  upon  "  annihilating  time  and  space  by 
steam  "  (as  people  said  in  1850 — but  the  saying  was 
confessedly  mere  rhetoric,  and  certainly  a  vulgar  kind), 
whereas  time  is  what  wisdom  would  seek  to  gain,  and 
space  is  full  of  beauty  upon  which  wisdom  would  be 
glad  to  pause. 

The  volume  closes  with  a  little  history  of  "  The 
Teachers  of  Turner,"  which  compares  Scott,  neglected 
as  a  boy,  with  Turner,  educated  a  little  in  the  for- 
malism of  a  low  degree  of  classical  knowledge,  which 
did,  in  fact,  show  the  way  to  larger  interests.  Albeit 
Turner  had  to  await  his  opportunity  to  steal  from  the 
Egerian  wells  to  the  Yorkshire  streams,  and  "  from 
Homeric  rocks,  with  laurels  at  the  top  and  caves  at 
the  bottom  "  to  Alpine  precipices  carrying  the  pine, 
yet  he  gained  something  from  the  restraint,  and  was 
thereafter  able  to  watch  with  pleasure  "the  staying  of 
the  silver  fountain  [the  garden  fountain]  at  its  ap- 
pointed height  in  the  sky  "  as  well  as  to  pore  with 
delight  upon  the  unbound  river.  But,  ordered,  as  a 


"MODERN  PAINTERS"  57 

boy,  to  draw  elevations  of  Renaissance  buildings,  and 
commissioned  as  a  youth  to  draw  Palladian  mansions 
for  their  owners,  Turner  never  loved  or  understood 
architecture;  whereas  Scott,  if  he  learnt  little  of  it, 
liked  it  heartily.  "  A  forced  admiration  of  Claude 
and  a  fond  admiration  of  Titian,"  and  of  all  the  great 
Venetian  landscape,  are  traced  by  Ruskin  in  Turner's 
early  work  ;  with  Cuyp  Turner  matched  himself  in 
emulation,  and  he  suffered  injury  from  the  example  of 
Vandevelde.  Then  follow  some  vigorous  pages  about 
Claude.  "  Tenderness  of  perception  and  sincerity  of 
purpose "  Ruskin  attributes  to  him ;  and  confesses 
that  he  it  was  who  first  set  the  sun  in  heaven.  But 
Claude's  way  of  misunderstanding  "  the  main  point  " 
is  proved  by  Ruskin  in  the  case  of  ^Eneas  drawing 
his  bow,  from  the  Liber  Veritatis. 

From  the  ending  of  this  volume,  which  refers  to  the 
Crimean  War,  the  reader  should  carry  two  phrases 
briefer  and  more  concentrated  than  is  usual  with  an 
author  so  bent  on  exposition.  One  is  "  the  sunlight 
of  deathbeds,"  and  the  other  (on  the  sudden  faults  of 
nations)  "  For  great,  accumulated  .  .  t  .  cause, 
their  foot  slides  in  due  time."  And  this  is  memorable 
as  the  note  of  a  watcher  of  public  things  : 

"  I  noticed  that  there  never  came  news  of  the  ex- 
plosion of  a  powder-barrel  .  .  .  but  the  Parlia- 
ment lost  confidence  immediately  in  the  justice  of  the 
war  ;  reopened  the  question  whether  we  ever  should 
have  engaged  in  it,  and  remained  in  a  doubtful  and 
repentant  state  of  mind  until  one  of  the  enemy's 
powder-barrels  blew  up  also." 


58  JOHN    RUSKIN 

Defending  himself  against  the  not  unrighteous 
charge  that  he  not  only  neglected  but  scorned  German 
philosophy,  Ruskin  avers,  in  his  Appendix,  that  he  is 
right  to  condemn  "by  specimen": 

"  He  who  seizes  all  that  he  plainly  discerns  to  be 
valuable,  and  never  is  unjust  but  when  he  cannot  honestly 
help  /'/,  will  soon  be  enviable  in  his  possessions,  and 
venerable  in  his  equity." 

The  humorous  phrase  takes  us  on  many  years,  to 
Fiction  Fair  and  Foul,  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  where 
Ruskin  related  his  refusal  to  be  troubled  to  read  a 
certain  novel  he  had  heard  praised;  the  "situation" 
of  the  story,  they  told  him,  was  that  of  two  people 
who  had  "compromised  themselves  in  a  boat";  foul 
and  foolish.  Not  without  pain  or  incredulity  has  the 
reader  to  learn  that  the  passage  so  ridiculed  is  the 
flight  and  the  return  of  Maggie  Tulliver.  Injustice 
may  be  as  inevitable  as  "stumbling  or  being  sick," 
but  evitable  was  the  proclamation  of  this  stray,  un- 
instructed,  and  unjustified  judgment.  The  pardon  of 
these  implicit  injustices  surely  depends  upon  their 
privacy,  upon  the  silence  that  is  not  irrevocable,  and 
on  the  secrecy  wherewith  a  man  keeps  his  own  counsel 
as  to  his  prejudice. 

The  volumes  are  less  difficult  reading  as  the  work 
goes  forward,  and  the  fourth  has  had  ten  readers  for 
one  reader  of  the  earlier  three.  Partly  for  this  cause 
the  page  on  the  Calais  tower  (placed  in  the  late  edition 
at  the  beginning  of  the  volume)  became  famous :  it 
evoked  what  its  author  calls  the  weak  enthusiasms  of 


"MODERN  PAINTERS"  59 

those  who  missed  the  essential  beauty  because  they 
thought  themselves  elected  to  admire  the  "  style."  It 
is  a  passage  of  a  chapter  directed  to  correct  and 
chastise  that  popular  ideal  of  the  "  picturesque  "  abroad 
and  the  "  neat "  at  home  wherewith  many  thousands 
go  and  come  across  the  Channel. 

"  The  large  neglect,  the  noble  unsightliness  of  it ; 
the  record  of  its  years  written  so  visibly,  yet  without 
sign  of  weakness  or  decay ;  its  stern  wasteness  and 
gloom,  eaten  away  by  the  Channel  winds,  and  over- 
grown by  the  bitter  sea  grasses ;  its  slates  and  tiles  all 
shaken  and  rent,  and  yet  not  falling ;  its  desert  of 
brickwork  full  of  bolts,  and  holes,  and  ugly  fissures, 
and  yet  strong,  like  a  bare  brown  rock ;  its  careless- 
ness of  what  any  one  thinks  or  feels  about  it,  putting 
forth  no  claim,  having  no  beauty  or  desirableness, 
pride,  nor  grace ;  yet  neither  asking  for  pity ;  not,  as 
ruins  are,  useless  and  piteous,  feebly  or  fondly  gar- 
rulous of  better  days ;  but  useful  still,  going  through 
its  own  daily  work — as  some  old  fisherman  beaten 
grey  by  storm,  yet  drawing  his  daily  nets ;  so  it  stands, 
with  no  complaint  about  its  past  youth,  in  blanched 
and  meagre  massiveness  and  serviceableness,  gathering 
human  souls  together  underneath  it;  the  sound  of  its 
bells  for  prayer  still  rolling  through  its  rents ;  and  the 
grey  peak  of  it  seen  far  across  the  sea,  principal  of  the 
three  that  rise  above  the  waste  of  surfy  sand  and 
hillocked  shore — the  lighthouse  for  life,  and  the  belfry 
for  labour,  and  this  for  patience  and  praise." 

Appropriate  to  the  time,  fifty  years  ago,  is  the  re- 
buke that  follows  of  the  painter  who  went  in  search 
of  "  fallen  cottage,  deserted  village,  blasted  heath, 
mouldering  castle," — joyful  sights  to  him  alone  of 


6O  JOHN    RUSK.IN 

mankind,  so  that  they  did  but  "  show  jagged  angles  of 
stone  and  timber  "  ;  true,  he  mingled  with  his  pleasures 
a  slight  tragical  feeling,  "a  vague  desire  to  live  in 
cottages,"  a  partly  romantic,  partly  humble,  sympathy. 
Ruskin  showed  him  his  own  triviality  in  contrast  with 
the  sympathy  of  genius  which  was  Turner's.  Tintoret 
had  a  like  genius,  but  without  humour.  Veronese 
had  such  a  sympathy,  but  without  tragedy.  Rubens 
wants  grace  and  mystery.  In  Turner  alone  Ruskin 
finds  the  complete  sympathy  ;  failing  only  as  he  was 
human.  From  the  immeasurably  various  opened 
world  before  such  a  genius  Turner  chose  great  things, 
not  contenting  himself  with  the  personal  impression 
that  might  make  odds  and  ends  dear  to  him,  as 
Ruskin's  young  pre-Raphaelites  were  doing,  leaving 
the  noble  things  to  be  made  into  "vignettes  for 
annuals,"  or  to  be  painted  vilely.  Surely  the  surviv- 
ing slander  that  Ruskin  would  have  his  disciples  to 
"  select  nothing  and  to  neglect  nothing  "  might  have 
been  silenced  once  for  all  by  the  note  to  this  same 
page,  which  proves  him  to  have  directed  none  but  the 
preparatory  studies  of  young  learners  by  that  celebrated 
phrase.  Nor  is  any  controversy  possible  in  face  of 
another  page  of  this  volume  : 

"  If  a  painter  has  inventive  power  he  is  to  treat  his 
subject  [by]  .  .  .  giving  not  the  actual  facts  of 
it,  but  the  impression  it  made  on  his  mind." 

Ruskin  supplied  his  future  opponents  with  this  word 
and  with  this  thought  which  they  brandished  and 


"MODERN  PAINTERS"  61 

vaunted  on  their  side  of  some  supposed  controversy. 
In  truth,  he  allows  a  "great  inventive  landscape 
painter"  to  do  what  he  likes,  to  give  not  the  image, 
but  the  spirit  of  a  place,  to  go  down  into  a  jumbled 
and  formless  lower  valley  of  the  Alps  with  his  mind 
full  of  the  terrors  of  a  pass  above  ;  and  in  that  power 
of  impression  to  transform  the  rocks.  But  let  the 
uninventive  beware  of  the  paltry  work  of  composing ; 
let  him  learn  to  make  portraits  of  places,  and  record 
for  us  the  battlefield  for  the  sake  of  strategy,  the  castle 
before  it  moulders  away,  the  abbey  before  it  is  pulled 
to  the  ground,  the  beast  before  it  is  extinct,  the 
topography  of  Venice  before  the  city  is  destroyed ; 
that  is  art  enough  for  him.  But,  unfortunately,  he  is 
not  to  be  trusted  for  facts ;  and  Ruskin  finds  that  the 
dull  Canaletto,  far  from  making  a  picture,  cannot  so 
much  as  record  exactly  where  a  house  stood.  If  any 
one  shall  say,  moreover,  that  by  this  or  that  invention 
Turner  did  wrong  inventively,  Ruskin  replies,  "  The 
dream  said  not  so  to  Turner." 

The  succeeding  chapters  are  a  long  lesson  on  the 
initial  and  unending  difficulties  of  illumination,  and 
of  the  degrees  of  pictorial  vision,  from  which  I  must 
quote  no  more  than  this  on  relations  or  "  values  "  : 

"Despise  the  earth;  fix  your  eyes  on  its  gloom, 
and  forget  its  loveliness  ;  and  we  do  not  thank  you  for 
your  languid  or  despairing  perception  of  brightness  in 
heaven.  But  rise  up  actively  from  the  earth, — learn 
what  there  is  in  it,  know  its  colour  and  form 
and  if  after  that  you  can  say  c  heaven  is  bright,'  it  will 
be  a  precious  truth." 


62  JOHN    RUSKIN 

And  this  from  the  study  of  colour  as  more  than  all 
else  a  painter's  business : 

"  The  student  may  be  led  into  folly  by  philosophers, 
and  into  falsehood  by  purists ;  but  he  is  always  safe  if 
he  holds  the  hand  of  a  colourist." 

And  this,  on  Mystery: 

"  All  distinct  drawing  must  be  bad   drawing,  and 
nothing  can  be  right  till  it  is  unintelligible. 
.     .     .     Excellence  of  the  highest  kind,  without  ob- 
scurity, cannot  exist." 

Assuredly,  without  difficulty  from  the  objections  of 
modern  readers,  who  are  convinced  already,  Rusk  in 
controls  by  means  of  these  truths  his  own  doctrine 
of  detail.  It  is  the  perception  of  mystery  that  the 
greatest  of  all  masters  have  added  to  the  perception 
of  truth — Turner,  Tintoret,  and  Paul  Veronese,  mys- 
terious painters,  whose  perception,  "  first  as  to  what 
is  to  be  done,  and  then  of  the  means  of  doing  it,  is 
so  colossal  that  I  always  feel  in  the  presence  of  their 
pictures  just  as  other  people  would  in  that  of  a  super- 
natural being."  The  student  should  weigh  well  the 
words  u  perception  of  mystery  "  and  all  that  they  im- 
ply, as  distinct  from  "  power  of  dispelling  mystery  "  or 
any  such  phrase.  All  invention,  moreover,  all  mys- 
tery, and  all  intricacy  must  close  in  a  simple  and  nat- 
ural pictorial  vision,  which  would  be  like  a  child's  if 
it  were  not  more  comprehensive.  Finally,  "  The 
right  of  being  obscure  is  not  one  to  be  lightly 
claimed."  From  this  point  the  fourth  volume  of 


"  MODERN    PAINTERS  "  63 

Modern  Painters  becomes  chiefly  a  direct  study  of  na- 
ture, a  study  indescribably  rich  but  not  to  be  followed 
by  notes  and  summaries.  An  exception  there  is  in 
the  digression  on  the  character  and  conditions  of  the 
Valais  peasantry,  in  "  Mountain  Gloom,"  a  chapter 
full  of  poignant  thoughts.  Some  fault  of  reasoning 
may  be  detected  in  the  attribution  to  their  religion  of 
a  peculiar  melancholy  in  these  people,  whereas  to  the 
same  cause  a  different  effect  must  be  referred  amongst 
the  equally  unworldly  countrymen  of  Lombardy,  and 
whereas  Ruskin  himself,  after  writing  with  bitterness 
of  this  religious  source  of  sorrow,  goes  on  to  show 
that  he  and  they  and  all  of  us  have  cause  enough  of 
grief  without  it.  Exquisite  is  the  sad  record  of  the 
work  of  the  husbandman — without  books,  or  thoughts, 
or  attainments,  or  rest — at  his  small  crops  on  the 
ledges  of  these  divine  mountain-sides,  where  "  the 
meadows  run  in  and  out  like  inlets  of  lake  among  the 
harvested  rocks,  sweet  with  perpetual  streamlets." 
The  historical  digression,  in  "  Mountain  Glory," 
studies  the  mountains  in  their  relation  to  the  history 
of  the  mind  of  man,  as  the  answering  aspect  of  man 
towards  the  mountains  was  studied  in  an  earlier  page ; 
and  here  again  I  lose  the  proof  of  the  argument. 
Ruskin  seems  to  compel  the  presence  of  the  moun- 
tains to  account  for  contrary  things,  rises  and  falls,  in 
the  history  of  Italian  painting.  And  the  accompany- 
ing inquiry  as  to  the  mountain  influence  upon  literary 
power  seems  to  be  one  of  the  few  enterprises  of  this 
courageous  mind  that  do  not  altogether  justify  them- 
selves ;  but  even  here  how  much  splendour  of  thought ! 


CHAPTER  V 

"  MODERN    PAINTERS  " 
THE  FIFTH   VOLUME   (i860) 

THE  last  volume  of  this  enormous  work  of  thought, 
imagination,  sincerity,  and  devotion  is  chiefly  a  con- 
tinuation of  the  study  of  natural  landscape,  of  form 
in  the  leaf,  anatomy  in  the  branch  ;  of  the  play  of 
these  creatures  of  earth  with  the  light  from  the  skies, 
and  the  unimaginable  shadows  that  "  stumble  over 
everything  they  come  across" — a  world  of  its  own 
that  of  the  experimental  shadow  !  This  volume  is  a 
study  of  the  whole  garden  :  "  How  have  we  ravaged 
instead  of  kept  it !  "  and  of  the  unalterable  skies. 
The  more  intent  the  study  is,  the  more  impassioned 
— a  look  of  adoration  at  arm's  length,  a  kiss  at  close 
quarters.  The  large  sense  of  vegetation,  that  unsuf- 
fering  creature,  with  its  youth,  age,  death  perpetually 
rehearsed,  grows  yet  more  poetic  when  it  is  the  little 
will  of  the  bud  to  grow  to  a  pinnacle  that  Ruskin 
looks  into,  with  his  incomparably  lovely  botany.  He 
tells  us  of  the  trees  that  are  builders  with  the  shield, 
and  of  those  that  are  builders  with  the  sword,  accord- 
ing to  the  manner  in  which  they  defend  their  buds ; 
he  tells  us  what,  measured  month  by  month,  is  the 
year's  work,  and,  by  the  periodicity  of  the  life  of 
vegetation  itself,  what  is  the  age's ;  how  the  young 
64 


"  MODERN    PAINTERS  "  65 

leaves,  "like  the  young  bees,"  keep  out  of  each 
other's  way.  The  exquisite  science  of  the  book  is 
for  the  service  of  art,  for  the  aspect  of  the  leaf  in  na- 
ture, and  for  the  praise  of  the  leaf-drawing  of  Titian 
and  Holbein,  and  for  the  refutation  of  the  leaf-draw- 
ing of  Ruysdael  and  Hobbema.  Ruskin  shows  us,  in 
boughs,  the  will,  fire,  and  fantasy  of  growth  measured 
by  the  strong  law  of  nervous  life  and  strong  law  of 
material  attraction,  the  height  of  a  tree  controlled 
by  the  gravitation  that  sinks  the  fall  of  lead.  He 
shows  us  the  whole  mathematical  truths  of  actual 
and  of  pictorial  balance  in  wild  asymmetric  nature 
and  in  Turner;  and  the  incoherence,  the  lack 
of  equilibrium,  in  the  dull-leaved  branch  of  Salva- 
tor  Rosa ;  and  how  the  false  work  lacks  wit  as 
well  as  poise.  He  proves  to  us  the  conditions  of  the 
leaf-bearing  bough — harmony,  obedience,  distress  (or 
difficulty),  and  happy  inequality.  Ruskin  has  said 
that  he  was  content  with  himself  for  one  thing — he 
had  done  justice  to  the  pine.  But  he  has  done  justice 
also  to  the  oak,  and  to  the  poplar.  Something  that 
belongs  to  the  special  leaf,  to  the  division  of  the  twigs, 
to  the  definite  design  that  by  their  tips  all  the  twigs 
and  branches  together  draw  as  the  figure  of  the  tree, 
something  that  is  peculiar  to  the  complexion  of  the 
leaf  and  to  its  green,  and  is  the  spirit  of  the  woods, 
abides  about  the  names  of  all  trees  in  these  pages. 

"  Between  the  earth  and  man  arose  the  leaf.  Be- 
tween the  heaven  and  man  arose  the  cloud.  His  life 
being  partly  as  the  falling  leaf,  and  partly  as  the  fly- 
ing vapour." 


66  JOHN    RUSKIN 

But  the  chapters  on  clouds  here  following — u  Cloud 
Balancings,"  "Cloud  Flocks,"  "Cloud  Chariots," 
"  The  Angel  of  the  Sea  " — are  not  only  scientific 
studies  of  clouds  carried  further  than  those  in  the  first 
volume,  and  observations  multiplied,  but  are  probably 
intended  to  mend  the  former  work  as  literature.  The 
page  of  sixteen  years  before  had  been  rather  abruptly 
patched  with  decorated  and  splendid  passages  ;  the 
page  of  the  last  volume  is  more  glorious,  the  words 
are  more  abundant.  Ruskin  himself  has  half  dis- 
owned the  eloquence  in  the  writing  of  the  earlier 
volumes,  but  in  truth  this  fifth  volume  outdoes  all 
that  had  gone  before.  The  purpose,  nevertheless,  is 
as  severe  as  ever ;  here,  as  throughout  this  long  task 
— "  the  investigation  of  the  beauty  of  the  visible 
world  " — it  was  always,  as  Ruskin  says  in  regard  to 
the  reader,  "  accuracy  I  asked  of  him,  not  sympathy ; 
patience,  not  zeal ;  apprehension,  not  sensation." 

The  following  part  of  this  volume  deals  with  cer- 
tain laws  of  art,  such  as  that  of  composition,  not 
fully  treated  elsewhere.  And  here  again  we  seem  to 
be  cast  back  upon  the  single  law  of  Genius.  As 
Ruskin  banned  "  every  kind  of  falsity,"  yet  allowed 
Rubens  to  make  an  horizon  aslant  with  the  drift  of  a 
stormy  picture,  and  praised  Vandyck  for  his  grey 
roses ;  so,  as  to  composition,  he  tells  us  that  no  ex- 
pression, truth  to  nature,  nor  sentiment  can  win  him 
to  look  at  a  picture  twice  if  it  is  ill  composed,  yet  the 
composition  cannot  be  prescribed  by  law ;  it  is  to  be 
as  a  great  painter  makes  it.  The  reader  will,  of 
course,  understand  that  "  composition  "  in  this  chap- 


"MODERN  PAINTERS"  67 

ter  and  "  composition  "  in  the  great  chapters  on  the 
"  Faculties  of  the  Imagination  "  must  be  taken  with 
separate  meanings  ;  in  the  latter  case  a  false  compo- 
sition is  implied.  Ruskin  has,  needless  to  say,  studied 
the  true  composition  of  his  great  painters  as  deeply 
as  their  other  qualities,  and  he  gives  a  technical  lesson 
thereon  in  "  The  Law  of  Help,"  starting  from  the 
contrast  of  the  decomposition  which  is  death  and  the 
composition  which  is  natural  life,  and  showing  true 
pictorial  composition  to  be  coherence,  unity,  and  vi- 
tality itself. 

"  In  true  composition,  everything  not  only  helps 
everything  else  a  little,  but  helps  with  its  utmost 
power.  .  .  .  Not  a  line,  not  a  spark  of  colour, 
but  is  doing  its  very  best." 

And  this  should  correct  the  doubts  of  those  who  have 
repeated  that  Ruskin  teaches  finish  to  be  "  an  added 
truth."  He  never  meant  thereby  a  piecemeal  truth; 
for  what  is  added  in  a  fine  picture  is  added,  he  tells 
us  in  this  chapter,  inevitably  and  in  unity ;  and  even 
when  he  represents  a  true  artist  asking  himself  where, 
in  his  picture,  he  can  "  crowd  in  "  another  detail,  an- 
other thought,  to  think  this  to  be  an  afterthought  or  a 
later  detail  would  be  to  misinterpret  Ruskin's  whole 
body  of  teaching.  Inferior  artists,  he  says,  are  afraid 
of  finish  not  because  they  have  unity,  but  because 
they  have  it  not.  Nor  have  they  the  deed,  which  is 
the  act  of  purpose.  The  greatest  deed  is  creation, 
and  the  creation  of  life.  In  "  The  Law  of  Perfect- 
ness  "  we  have  the  fruit  of  an  additional  study  of 


68  JOHN    RUSKIN 

Titian — "  the  winter  was  spent  mainly  in  trying  to 
get  at  the  mind  of  Titian  " — especially  in  his  execu- 
tion of  colour;  that  is,  the  ground,  the  working  in, 
the  striking  over  of  colours.  "The  Dark  Mirror" 
sums  up  the  four  landscape  orders  of  Europe  :  Heroic 
(Titian)  ;  Classical  (Nicolo  Poussin)  ;  Pastoral  (Cuyp) ; 
Contemplative  (Turner) ;  and  two  spurious  forms  : 
Picturesque  and  Hybrid.  The  reader  has  to  resign 
himself  to  the  banishment  from  Ruskin's  thought  of 
all  the  great  French  landscape.  Once  or  twice  he 
names  French  modern  work  with  horror  as  something 
deathly  ;  but  what  he  knows,  if  anything,  of  the 
young  Corot,  for  example,  or  of  Millet,  one  cannot 
so  much  as  conjecture.  For  Venetian  art  he  claims 
a  share  of  the  Greek  spirit  which  is  able  to  look  with- 
out shrinking  into  the  darkness,  unentangled  in  the 
melancholy  war  of  the  northern  souls  of  Holbein 
and  Durer,  unconquered  by  the  evil  that  not  only  en- 
tangled but  possessed  Salvator.  Therefore  one  chap- 
ter is  called  "  The  Lance  of  Pallas "  and  the  other 
"  The  Wings  of  the  Lion,"  and  both  deal  with  the 
race  and  character  of  Titian.  A  courageous  "but 
not  very  hopeful  or  cheerful  faith  "  (and  this,  in  spite 
of  the  gaiety  of  interest  which  is  Mr.  Meredith's, 
might  be  a  phrase  of  this  last-named  master's  teach- 
ing) is  that  which  is  "  rewarded  by  clear  practical 
success  and  splendid  intellectual  power."  And  this 
was  in  the  highest  degree  Shakespeare's ;  for  although 
"at  the  close  of  Shakespeare's  tragedy  nothing  re- 
mains but  dead  march  and  clothes  of  burial,"  yet  he 
was  able  to  endure  that  close.  It  was  also  that  of  the 


"MODERN  PAINTERS"  69 

Greek  tragedy,  with  this  difference  in  the  sorrow — 
that  it  is  connected  with  sin  by  the  Greek  and  not  by 
Shakespeare ;  and  this  difference  in  the  close — that 
with  the  Greek  there  is  a  promise  of  divine  triumph 
and  rising  again.  Serene  is  Homer's  spirit,  with  an 
added  cheerfulness  of  his  own,  and  practical  hope  in 
present  things. 

"  The  gods  have  given  us  at  least  this  glorious  body 
and  this  righteous  conscience." 

Therefrom  came  conquest ;  and  the  destroying,  op- 
pressing, slaying,  and  betraying  gods  turned  kind ; 
Artemis  guarded  their  flocks,  and  Phoebus,  "  lord  of 
the  three  great  spirits  of  life — Care,  Memory,  and 
Melody — "  turned  healer.  Ruskin  shows  us  the  Ve- 
netians also  courageous,  but  a  little  sadder  on  the  sur- 
face, a  little  less  serious  beneath,  having  arisen  from, 
and  partly  rejected,  asceticism.  Seizing  truth  of  col- 
our as  only  he  can,  he  makes  us  understand  much  by 
telling  us  that  they  sunburn  all  their  hermits  to  a 
splendid  brown.  And  he  tells  us  of  the  dealings  of 
the  sea  with  this  people  that  despised  agriculture  and 
had  no  gardens,  but  a  "  perpetual  May  "  of  the  wa- 
ters. Nay,  not  a  perpetual  May ;  we  may  join  issue 
with  Ruskin  as  to  the  seasons  of  the  sea.  Did  even 
he,  who  knew  better  than  to  follow  the  fashion,  and 
who  went  to  the  Alps  when  the  gentians  were  blue — 
did  even  he  not  know  the  May  that  kindles  the  Adri- 
atic and  is  not  perpetual,  or  it  would  not  be  May  ? 
But  how  exquisitely  is  this  written  of  the  Venetian 


yO  JOHN    RUSKIN 

citizen,  with  its  allusions  to  certain  Greeks — to  Anac- 
reon,  to  Aristophanes,  and  to  Hippias  Major: 

"  No  swallow  chattered  at  his  window,  nor,  nestled 
under  his  golden  roofs,  claimed  the  sacredness  of  his 
mercy;  no  Pythagorean  fowl  taught  him  the  blessings 
of  the  poor,  nor  did  the  grave  spirit  of  poverty  rise  at 
his  side  to  set  forth  the  delicate  grace  and  honour  of 
lowly  life.  No  humble  thoughts  of  grasshopper  sire 
had  he,  like  the  Athenian;  no  gratitude  for  gifts  of 
olive;  no  childish  care  for  figs,  any  more  than  thistles." 

As  usual  Ruskin  betakes  himself  to  the  religion  of 
the  Venetians;  the  most  he  knows  of  it  was  told  him 
in  the  nursery  at  Herne  Hill;  submitting  to  this,  and 
to  the  cruel  passing-over,  as  something  non-existent, 
of  the  enormous  work  of  one  faculty  of  religion — 
Compassion — that  changed  the  face  of  nations,  we 
shall  hear  in  this  chapter  great  things,  nobly  said,  about 
the  Venetian  soul  of  man.  It  is  a  pity  that  half  a 
page  of  refutation  should  be  wasted  in  condescension 
to  so  vulgar  an  English  modern  opinion  as  that  the 
Venetian  lord  painted  on  his  knees  was  a  hypocrite. 
But  the  worldly  end  of  this  religious  art  and  majestic 
intellect  (Titian  was  not  less  religious  than  Tintoret, 
but  "  the  religion  of  Titian  is  like  that  of  Shakespeare 
— occult  behind  his  magnificent  equity")  came  to 
pass  and  is  accounted  for  by  Ruskin  after  his  own 
subtle  way  : 

"  In  its  roots  of  power  and  modes  of  work ;  in  its 
belief,  its  breadth,  and  its  judgment,  I  find  the  Venetian 
mind  perfect ;  wholly  noble  in  its  sources, 

it  was  wholly  unworthy  in  its  purposes." 


"MODERN  PAINTERS"  71 

The  Venetian  believed  in  the  religion,  but  "  he  de- 
sired the  delight."  It  is  difficult  to  the  reader  thus 
to  divide  source  from  purpose.  When  Ruskin  says 
that  Titian  painted  the  Assumption  "  because "  he 
"enjoyed  rich  masses  of  red  and  blue,  and  faces 
flushed  with  sunlight,"  I  confess  I  need  to  be  told 
that  this  "  because "  refers  to  purpose  and  not  to 
source.  Is  there  not,  finally,  something  omitted  in 
this  history  of  Venetian  art  as  also  in  the  histories  of 
Florentine,  and  of  Greek,  and  of  Northern,  and  of 
French,  and  of  Lombard,  and  of  all  arts  whereof 
Ruskin  has  written  the  vicissitudes — and  is  not  this 
the  law  of  movement  and  of  alteration  ?  He  goes  far, 
goes  deep,  goes  close,  to  explain  the  inevitable  change 
which  comes  about  perhaps  through  no  action  that 
man  can  know  by  searching  or  can  arrest  for  an  hour. 
The  following  chapter,  "  Diirer  and  Salvator,"  is 
upon  art  reconciled  to  sorrow,  and  upon  the  "  Resur- 
rection of  Death  "  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries.  First  of  Salvator  Rosa,  "  the  condemned 
Salvator,"  the  bearer  of  the  last  signs  of  the  spiritual 
life  in  the  art  of  Europe,  who  named  himself  "  Despiser 
of  wealth  and  of  death."  "Two  grand  scorns,"  says 
Ruskin,  but  "  the  question  is  not  for  man  what  he 
can  scorn  but  what  he  can  love."  Diirer,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  quiet,  riding  in  fortitude  with  Death, 
like  his  own  Knight.  Claude  and  Caspar  Poussin, 
"  classical,"  but  incapable  of  the  Greek  or  the  Roman 
spirit,  renounced  the  labour  and  sorrow  whereto  man 
is  born  and  so  became  ornamental,  renounced  the 
pursuit  of  wealth  and  so  became  pastoral  and  pretended 


72  JOHN    RUSKIN 

to  study  nature ;  they  made  selections  from  amongst 
the  gods.  In  their  works  "Minerva  rarely  presents 
herself,  except  to  be  insulted  by  the  judgment  of 
Paris."  And  in  this  chapter  occurs  the  last  elaborate 
passage  on  Claude,  the  man  of  "  fine  feeling  for 
beauty  of  form  and  considerable  tenderness  of  percep- 
tion," whose  "  aerial  effects  are  unrivalled,"  and 
whose  seas  are  "the  most  beautiful  in  old  art  ";  but 
who  was  an  artist  without  passion.  For  its  humour  I 
must  quote  the  description  of  Claude's  "  St.  George 
and  the  Dragon  "  : 

"A  beautiful  opening  in  woods  by  a  riverside;  a 
pleasant  fountain  .  .  .  and  rich  vegetation. 
.  The  dragon  is  about  the  size  of  ten  bramble 
leaves,  and  is  being  killed  by  the  remains  of  a  lance 
in  his  throat,  curling  his  tail  in  a  highly  of- 
fensive and  threatening  manner.  St.  George,  not- 
withstanding, on  a  prancing  horse,  brandishes  his 
sword,  at  about  thirty  yards'  distance  from  the  offen- 
sive animal.  A  semicircular  shelf  of  rocks  encircles 
the  foreground,  by  which  the  theatre  of  action  is  di- 
vided into  pit  and  boxes.  Some  women  and  children 
having  descended  unadvisedly  into  the  pit  are  helping 
each  other  out  of  it  again.  ...  A  prudent  per- 
son of  rank  has  taken  a  front  scat  in  the  boxes, 
crosses  his  legs,  leans  his  head  on  his  hand; 
two  attendants  stand  in  graceful  attitudes  behind  him, 
and  two  more  walk  away  under  the  trees,  conversing 
on  general  subjects." 

As  to  Claude's  "Worship  of  the  Golden  Calf," 
**  in  order  better  to  express  the  desert  of  Sinai,  the 
river  is  much  larger,  and  the  vegetation  softer.  Two 


"  MODERN    PAINTERS  "  73 

people,  uninterested  in  idolatrous  ceremonies,  are 
rowing  in  a  pleasure-boat  on  the  river."  Poussin's 
"strong  but  degraded  mind"  is  the  subject  of  graver 
phrases  j  all  he  does  well  has  been  better  done  by 
Titian  ;  he  also  in  his  manner  is  condemned  for  lack  of 
passion.  The  pastoral  landscape,  more  properly  so- 
called — Cuyp  and  Teniers  the  type  of  its  painters — 
was  lower  yet,  destitute  not  of  spiritual  character 
only,  but  of  spiritual  thought.  Cuyp  can  paint  sun- 
light, but  paints  unthoughtfully.  "  Nothing  happens 
in  his  pictures,  except  some  indifferent  person's  ask- 
ing the  way  of  somebody  else,  who,  by  his  cast  of 
countenance,  seems  not  likely  to  know  it."  Paul 
Potter  "  does  not  care  even  for  sheep,  but  only  for 
wool." 

"  Titian  could  have  put  issues  of  life  and  death  into 
the  face  of  a  man  asking  his  way ;  nay,  into  the  back 
of  him.  .  .  .  He  has  put  a  whole  scheme  of 
dogmatic  theology  into  a  row  of  bishops'  backs  at  the 
Louvre.  And  for  dogs,  Velasquez  has  made  some  of 
them  nearly  as  grand  as  his  surly  Kings." 

It  is  in  the  same  chapter  that  Ruskin  speaks  of  the 
trivial  sentiment  and  caricature  of  Landseer,  who 
"gave  up  the  true  nature  of  the  animal"  for  the  sake 
of  a  jest.  And  by  this  mature  judgment  the  reader 
should  correct  a  passage  of  praise  in  an  earlier  volume. 
In  the  chapter  that  contrasts  Wouvermans  and 
Angelico,  Ruskin  tells  us  how  he  finds  it  impossible 
to  "  lay  hold  of  the  temper "  of  some  of  the  Dutch 
painters,  workmanlike  though  they  are.  Wouvermans 


74  JOHN    RUSKIN 

and  Berghem  are  amongst  the  masters  of  the  u  hybrid 
landscape,"  intended  to  combine  the  attractions  of  the 
other  schools,  but  they  have  a  "clay-cold,  ice-cold 
incapacity  of  understanding  what  pleasure  meant." 
Music,  dancing,  hunting,  boating,  fishing,  bathing, 
and  child-play  are  sprinkled  in  a  picture  of  Wouver- 
mans,  but  the  fishing  and  bathing  go  on  close  together ; 
no  one  turns  to  look  at  the  hunting  •,  hart  and  hind  gallop 
across  the  middle  of  the  river  touching  bottom,  but 
a  man  dives  at  the  edge  where  it  is  deep ;  the  dancing 
has  no  spring ;  the  buildings  are  part  ruin,  part  villa. 
Ruskin  holds  this  paralysis  of  dramatic  invention  to 
be  the  consequence  of  the  desire  to  please  sensual 
patrons  by  offering  them  "  inventoried  articles  of 
pleasure."  "  Unredeemed  carnal  appetite  "  seems  to 
the  reader  a  somewhat  violent  sentence  for  this  cold 
incontinence  of  incident,  this  trifling  of  convention, 
but  Ruskin  has  never  allowed  trifling  to  be  a  trifle, 
whether  in  art  or  in  life.  The  study  of  Angelico, 
master  of  the  Purist  school  ("  I  have  guarded  my 
readers  from  over-estimating  that  school ")  opposes 
spirituality  to  this  luxury  about  which  the  reader  has 
perhaps  his  doubts.  As  for  Angelico,  a  dramatic  or 
imaginative  movement  of  some  embracing  angel 
amongst  his  groups  seems  to  me  to  save  him,  barely, 
from  weakness ;  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  we  may 
name  any  weak  thing  as  typically  spiritual. 

Ruskin  goes  back  to  Turner  in  the  chapter  called 
"  The  Two  Boyhoods,"  which  paints  the  Venice  of 
the  young  Giorgione,  and  the  Maiden  Lane,  the 
Chelsea,  the  Covent  Garden,  and  Thames  side  of  the 


"  MODERN    PAINTERS  "  75 

London  child.  The  description  of  Venice  is  some- 
what too  gorgeous.  It  is  hardly  possible  for  any  one 
who  knows  Italy  to  imagine  her  at  any  time  all  ala- 
baster, bronze,  and  marble,  splendidly  draped.  But 
like  this  untempered  Venice  of  fancy  is  Ruskin's  page. 
It  is  one  of  the  beautiful  passages  that  I  do  not  ex- 
tract, marking  only  with  pleasure  the  quiet  phrase  that 
explains  how  no  weak  walls,  low-roofed  cottage,  or 
straw-built  shed  could  be  built  over  those  "  tremulous 
streets."  Turner's  only  drawing  of  an  English  clergy- 
man is  excellently  described,  and  Turner  in  the  fogs, 
Turner  among  the  ships,  Turner  in  the  outer  ways 
of  the  trampled  market.  Ever  after,  his  foregrounds 
had  "  a  succulent  cluster  or  two  of  green-grocery  at 
the  corners."  But  the  England  of  his  day  did  graver 
things  to  him  even  than  the  nurturing  of  this  great 
childhood  in  squalor.  Ruskin  gives  us  the  exposition 
of  the  first  picture  painted  by  Turner  with  his  whole 
strength — the  Garden  of  the  Hesperides  of  1806,  as 
a  great  religious  picture  of  that  opening  century,  and 
its  religion  the  triumph  of  the  dragon  of  Mammon  or 
Covetousness,  sleepless,  human-voiced,  /'/  gran  nemico 
of  Dante,  set  by  Turner  in  a  paradise  of  smoke,  con- 
ceived by  the  painter's  imaginative  intellect  as  iron- 
hearted,  with  a  true  bony  contour,  organic,  but  like  a 
glacier.  And  as  an  earlier  chapter  had  ended : 
"  This "  (the  labour,  that  is,  of  Albert  Diirer),  "  is 
indeed  the  labour  which  is  crowned  with  laurel  and 
has  the  wings  of  the  eagle.  It  was  reserved  for  an- 
other country  to  prove  .  .  .  the  labour  which  is 
crowned  with  fire  and  has  the  wings  of  the  bat " ;  so 


76  JOHN    RUSK.IN 

this  sad  chapter  on  the  "  Nereid's  Guard  "  closes  with 
the  fulfilment  of  the  menace ;  the  "  other  country  " 
and  the  other  age  were  Turner's.  Ruskin's  beloved 
painter  was  also,  like  Salvator  himself,  in  part  over- 
come of  evil.  And  when  he  fought  his  way  to  nature 
and  the  skies,  painting  sun-colour  as  Claude  and  Cuyp 
had  painted  but  sunshiny  the  world  not  only  rejected 
but  reviled  him.  "  One  fair  dawn  or  sunset  obedi- 
ently beheld  "  would  have  set  it  right,  and  justified  his 
painting  of  the  coloured  Apollo.  His  critics  shouted, 
"  Perish  Apollo.  Bring  us  back  Python."  "  And 
Python  came,"  adds  Ruskin,  "  came  literally  as  well 
as  spiritually  ;  all  the  perfect  beauty  and  conquest 
which  Turner  wrought  is  already  withered."  This 
refers  to  the  destruction  that  has  come  so  soon  upon 
the  very  material  of  Turner's  work — wrecked,  faded, 
and  defiled,  yet  even  so  better  than  any  other  land- 
scape painting  unmarred. 

No  man,  before  Turner,  had  painted  clouds  scarlet. 
"  Hesperid  ./Egle  and  Erytheia  [the  blushing  one]  fade 
into  the  twilights  of  four  thousand  years  unconfessed." 
And  in  this  new  page  on  the  great  subject  of  colour 
Ruskin  teaches  us  that  albeit  form  is  of  incalculably 
greater  importance,  an  error  in  colour  is  graver  than 
an  error  in  form,  because  of  relation ;  the  form  be- 
longs to  the  thing  it  defines,  the  colour  to  the  thing 
and  to  all  about  it ;  to  deal  falsely  with  the  colour 
u  breaks  the  harmony  of  the  day."  I  do  not  know  a 
more  luminous  thought  on  colour  than  this,  even  in 
these  shining  pages.  Few  have  been  the  supreme 
colourists:  Titian,  Giorgionc,  Veronese,  Tintoret, 


"MODERN  PAINTERS"  77 

Correggio,  Reynolds,  and  Turner,  as  Ruskin  counts 
them — seven ;  whereas  of  the  other  qualities  or  powers 
of  art  the  great  masters  have  been  many. 

Under  the  title  of  "  Peace  "  the  last  great  chapter 
of  this  great  work  closes,  not  peacefully,  but  with 
passionate  grief.  Turner  had  been  dead  nearly  twenty 
years,  but  the  cruelty  of  the  "  criticism "  that  had 
made  his  life  lonely  and  painful  had  never  ceased  to 
wound  his  friend. 

"  There  never  was  yet  .  .  .  isolation  of  a  great 
spirit  so  utterly  desolate.  .  .  .  My  own  admira- 
tion was  wild  in  enthusiasm,  but  it  gave  him  no  ray 
of  pleasure ;  he  could  not  make  me  at  that  time  under- 
stand his  main  meanings ;  he  loved  me,  but  cared 
nothing  for  what  I  said,  and  was  always  trying  to 
hinder  me  from  writing,  because  it  gave  pain  to 
his  fellow-artists.  .  .  .  To  censure  Turner  was 
acutely  sensitive.  .  .  .  He  knew  that  however 
little  his  higher  power  could  be  seen,  he  had  at  least 
done  as  much  as  ought  to  have  saved  him  from  wan- 
ton insult,  and  the  attacks  upon  him  in  his  later  years 
were  to  him  not  merely  contemptible  in  their  igno- 
rance, but  amazing  in  their  ingratitude." 

Let  the  reader  bear  in  mind  that  it  is  was  precisely  in 
the  first  year  that  showed  a  Royal  Academy  without 
any  pictures  of  Turner's  that  the  "  Times  "  had  learnt 
to  call  them  "  works  of  inspiration."  It  is  charac- 
teristic of  Ruskin  that  he  cannot  take  the  customary 
comfort  and  say  that  Turner  learnt  in  the  sorrow  he 
underwent  what  he  had  not  learnt  in  the  joy  he  missed  ; 
the  last  pages  of  Modern  Painters  protest  against 


78  JOHN    RUSKIN 

this  form  of  commonplace.  They  utter,  finally,  one 
of  many  menaces  against  a  world  intent  upon  gain, 
and  negligent  of  art  and  nature.  Men  in  England 
had  learnt,  say  these  mournful  closing  sentences,  not 
to  say  in  their  hearts  "  There  is  no  God,"  but  to  say 
aloud,  '-There  is  a  foolish  God  " ;  "  His  orders  will 
not  work  " ;  "  Faith,  generosity,  honesty,  zeal,  and 
self-sacrifice  are  poetical  phrases  "  ;  and  "The  power 
of  man  is  only  power  of  prey  :  otherwise  than  the 
spider,  he  cannot  design ;  otherwise  than  the  tiger,  he 
cannot  feed." 


CHAPTER  VI 
"THE  SEVEN  LAMPS  OF  ARCHITECTURE"  (1849) 

THIS  was  the  first  illustrated  book  published  by  Rus- 
kin.  The  illustrated  volumes  of  Modern  Painters 
followed  it  closely  with  their  splendid  cloud  and  tree 
drawing.  In  the  Seven  Lamps  the  etchings  are  of 
course  architectural,  but  they  are  etchings  of  a  living 
stone.  A  vitality  of  construction,  of  time,  of  shadow 
and  light,  and  of  the  power  and  weight  of  stone  are  in 
these  plates,  overbitten  and  not  altogether  technically 
successful  as  they  are ;  I  speak  of  those  of  the  first 
edition,  afterwards  withdrawn.  Ruskin  made  his  draw- 
ings from  windows,  lofts  and  ladders,  holding  on  as  he 
might,  and  bit  the  plates  hurriedly  on  his  journey 
home. 

The  book  was  an  incident  of  the  third  volume  of 
Modern  Painters — a  pause  upon  the  topic  of  archi- 
tecture, but  a  pause  as  it  were  in  haste  and  full  of 
some  of  the  most  intent  and  urgent  labour  of  John  Rus- 
kin's  life.  There  was  no  need  for  despatch  when 
primroses  were  to  be  outlined,  or  when  a  lax,  random 
weaving  of  grasses  grown  to  the  flower  in  June  was 
to  be  woven  again  with  a  delicate  pencil :  for  another 
year  would  make  amends  for  any  possible  lapse  of 
purpose  or  interruption  of  work,  yielding  new  flowers 
to  take  the  place  of  the  old.  A  student  of  vegetation 

79 


8O  JOHN    RUSKIN 

may  "  wake,  and  learn  the  world,  and  sleep  again," 
not  lying  in  wait  for  changes,  but  confident  of  that 
repetition  which  makes  nature  old  and  mystical  to 
memory,  and  of  that  renewal  which  makes  her  young 
and  simple  to  hope — a  mother  to  the  spirit  and  a  child 
to  the  eye.  The  painter  of  mountains  will  not  be  de- 
frauded by  years  of  the  ancient  line  upon  the  sky. 
The  linked  memories  of  all  generations  are  not  long 
enough,  in  all,  to  outwatch  and  to  record  a  change  in 
a  little  hill.  He  may  be  blind,  or  mad,  or  absent,  but 
the  shape  of  a  bay  will  await  his  light,  his  reason,  or 
his  return.  Not  so  with  the  student  of  ancient  build- 
ings, who  would  arrest  the  action  of  time,  and  who 
therefore  must  make  his  own  hour  of  labour  elastic 
with  application  and  with  vigilance  ;  albeit  mere  time, 
Ruskin  tells  us,  unbuilds  so  slowly  that  if  men  took 
pains,  they  might  repair  his  action — not  by  the  futile 
effort  of  "  restoration  "  but  by  honest  proppings  and 
shorings  that  should  confess  their  own  date  and  pur- 
pose and  make  no  confusions  in  the  history  of  con- 
struction. It  is  not  the  unbuilding  of  time,  therefore, 
that  presses  the  student,  but  the  destruction  wrought 
with  violence  by  man,  contemptuous  and  impatient  of 
the  work  of  the  past,  or  confident  that  he  can  do  some- 
thing better  with  the  stones  unset  and  set  up  in  an- 
other fashion.  Ruskin  was  obliged  to  delay  the  third 
volume  of  Modern  Painters  while  he  made  his  draw- 
ings of  that  which  no  eye  should  see  and  no  hand 
should  copy  again.  A  note  to  the  preface  of  The 
Seven  Lamps  tells  us  that  the  writer's  "  whole  time  has 
been  lately  occupied  in  taking  drawings  from  one  side 


"THE  SEVEN  LAMPS  OF  ARCHITECTURE"       81 

of  buildings,  of  which  the  masons  were  knocking 
down  the  other." 

The  book,  taking  its  place  as  an  interlude  in  what 
was  the  continuous  work  of  the  young  "  Graduate  of 
Oxford,"  takes  its  place  also  as  a  book  definite  in 
motive,  justified  by  the  unity  of  the  matter,  the  re- 
sponsibility of  the  purpose,  and  the  fulness  of  prepara- 
tion— the  conscience  and  conviction  need  hardly  be 
named  ;  but  The  Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture  is,  more 
than  some  of  its  followers,  one  book  from  beginning 
to  end.  It  has  the  unity  of  abundant  matter, — the 
unity,  that  is,  which  need  not  break  boundaries  al- 
though it  stretches  and  enlarges  them  with  fulness, 
but  holds  together,  amply,  easily,  containing  with 
patience  the  urgence  of  a  throng  of  thoughts.  And 
the  subject  has  its  own  unity  of  time,  inasmuch  as 
the  dominating  centre  of  the  book  is  the  work  of  a 
certain  half-century. 

We  shall  find  nothing  more  characteristic  of  Ruskin 
than  this  incident  of  the  fifty  years  in  question.  Let 
me  describe  them,  though  roughly  enough,  to  the 
reader,  by  means  of  Ruskin's  own  discovery  that  they 
were  the  years  in  which  the  stonemason,  setting  his 
work  of  Gothic  tracery  between  man  and  the  heavens, 
thought  equally  of  the  form  of  the  light  he  revealed 
by  his  window  and  of  the  form  of  the  stone  whereby  he 
revealed  it.  The  eyes  of  that  stonemason's  father 
had  been  chiefly  intent  upon  the  opening,  the  star; 
the  form  of  it  had  been  in  his  fancy  ;  and  in  the  men- 
tal councils  of  invention  the  shape  of  this  exterior 
light,  as  his  work  was  about  to  define  it,  had  been  the 


8l  JOHN    RUSKIN 

president  image.  The  son  of  that  stonemason,  on  the 
other  hand — the  half-century  being  past — thought  in 
the  foremost  place  of  the  shape  of  his  beautiful  stone; 
beautiful  it  was,  but  not  more  beautiful  than  his  whose 
fortune  it  was  to  live  in  the  great  half-century,  and 
whose  act  it  was  to  do  the  work  that  made  the  half- 
century  great.  This  latter — the  stone-sculptor  of  the 
fifty  years  here  set  in  the  midst — designing  a  star  of 
sky  and  designing  the  starred  stone  with  the  dignity 
of  equal  invention,  made  the  window  that  is  mani- 
festly the  noblest.  Ruskin,  with  singular  sight  and 
singular  insight,  perceives  the  manner,  the  cause,  the 
past,  the  future,  and  the  value  of  that  window  and 
gives  it  an  historical  place  and  sanction.  There  is  no 
child  that  does  not  lie  staring  at  the  wall  and  fancy- 
ing that  a  wall-paper  design  seems  now  to  take  the 
shape  enclosed  by  lines  and  anon  the  shape  of  the  in- 
tervals instead ;  and  Ruskin's  eye  saw  the  tracery 
simply,  impartially,  and  without  preoccupation,  like  a 
child's  and  saw  it  with  the  mason's  eye  moreover,  and 
with  the  discerning  spirit  of  a  master  of  theory.  The 
reader  might  be  tempted  to  urge  this  incident  beyond 
its  proper  significance  as  an  architectural  or  historical 
discovery  but  he  can  hardly  be  wrong  in  appreciating 
the  passage  for  its  authorship — authorship,  that  is,  and 
all  that  it  implies  of  character,  nature,  and  special  and 
manifold  fitness  for  the  work  of  the  book. 

To  proceed  to  the  expository  task. 

The  Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture  are  :  The  Lamp 
of  Sacrifice ;  The  Lamp  of  Truth ;  The  Lamp  of 
Power  j  The  Lamp  of  Beauty;  The  Lamp  of  Life; 


"THE  SEVEN  LAMPS  OF  ARCHITECTURE"       83 

The  Lamp  of  Memory ;  The  Lamp  of  Obedience. 
On  the  cloth-cover  of  the  original  edition,  designed  by 
Ruskin  after  the  arabesques  of  the  pavement  of  San 
Miniato,  above  Florence — foliage,  birds,  and  beasts 
arranged  by  counter-change — are  embossed  seven 
other  words  of  kindred  meaning :  Religio ;  Observ- 
antia;  Auctoritas ;  Fides;  Obedientia;  Memoria; 
Spiritus.  The  volume  is  divided  into  unequal  chap- 
ters, headed  with  the  English  titles  already  stated. 
The  first  has  in  greatest  measure  the  signs  of  the 
author's  yet  unmitigated  youth.  It  is  not  so  much 
the  work  of  an  untamed  spirit  as  that  of  a  spirit  wear- 
ing certain  bonds  with  all  its  will,  a  thousand  times 
convinced,  and  that  from  the  first  infancy.  There  is 
the  tone  of  a  man  troubled  to  convey  his  indignation 
by  terms  adequate,  in  the  passage  wherein  he  threatens 
the  English  nation  with  sensible  visitation  of  divine 
wrath  upon  her  honour,  her  commerce,  and  her  arts 
as  a  retribution  for  the  measure  whereby  a  place  in 
her  legislature  had  been  "impiously  conceded  to 
the  Romanist."  All  this  was  not  only  disclaimed  but 
unsaid  in  succeeding  editions.  Childhood  with  its 
passions — the  polemic  passion  of  a  spiritual  and  intel- 
lectual home-boy  is  one  of  the  most  tumultuous  of 
fresh  passions — was  still  in  a  sense  in  Ruskin's  heart 
during  the  writing  of  The  Seven  Lamps. '  In  some 
things  he  made,  as  we  shall  hear  him  tell  later  in  Fors 
Clavigera,  a  definite  change ;  he,  for  one,  could  not 
live  under  the  stress  of  doctrines  that  obliged  and  ad- 
mitted of  no  transaction,  and  yet  actually  suffered 
daily  transaction  at  the  hands  of  their  professors.  He 


84  JOHN    RUSKIN 

had  thought  every  moment  committed  to  crime  that 
was  not  spent  in  rescuing  men  from  eternal  reproba- 
tion; the  choice  was  now  thrust  upon  him:  should 
he  devote  his  years  and  moments  directly,  theologic- 
ally, and  immediately,  or  should  he  mitigate  his  con- 
viction of  the  instant  stress  of  obligation  ?  How  he 
answered  the  question  may  be  judged  from  the  fact 
that  he  addressed  himself  to  the  mediate  work  of  art. 

"The  Lamp  of  Sacrifice  "  needs  not  from  a  com- 
mentator to-day  the  definition  that  was  due  when  The 
Seven  Lamps  was  written.  Manifestly,  this  author's 
works  have  both  enriched  the  minds  of  Englishmen 
with  ideas  and  have  accustomed  them  to  the  appre- 
hension of  ideas.  What  he  has  thought  and  pro- 
nounced abides  with  us,  as  it  were,  both  in  mechan- 
ical suspension  and  in  chemical  solution.  He  has 
charged  us  with  his  teachings,  and  has  modified  our 
intelligence.  Thus,  many  of  his  pages  seem  now  to 
be  over-anxiously  expository  that  were  not  so  when 
he  composed  them.  In  this  matter  he  stands  between 
the  old  age  and  the  new.  Briefly,  he  suggests  in  this 
chapter  a  delicate  distinction  between  sacrifice  and 
waste  ;  between  that  work  upon  partially  concealed 
ornament,  which  is  the  continuation  of  visible  orna- 
ment, and  thus  justifies  the  surmise  of  the  eye  and 
keeps  a  promise,  and  work  bestowed  carelessly  or 
with  ignorance  as  to  how  to  "  make  it  tell,"  or  with 
heartless  contempt  of  the  value  of  human  effort.  This 
last  is  the  subject  of  a  "  nice  balance."  From  art  that 
is  purely  wasted  on  the  one  hand,  and  from  art  (or  art 
so-called)  that  is  purely  exhibitory,  on  the  other,  the 


"  THE    SEVEN    LAMPS    OF    ARCHITECTURE  "         85 

right   spirit  of  sacrifice  is  absent.     Hard  work  is  ap- 
proved— "  all  old  work  nearly  has  been  hard  work." 

As  usual,  the  examples  are  exceedingly  interesting. 
We  are  taught  to  respect  the  economy  of  the  bas-re- 
liefs of  San  Zeno  at  Verona,  with  their  rich  work  well 
in  sight,  and  the  simplicity  of  the  still  lovely  work  of 
the  arcade  above,  the  various  distances  being  treated 
not  by  a  difference  in  degree  of  beauty  in  decoration, 
but  by  a  difference  in  the  quality  of  design.  And  so 
forth  with  a  series  of  instances  that  yield  all  their 
significance  to  the  sight  and  insight  of  Ruskin's  intel- 
lectual eyes.  It  follows  from  this  doctrine  of  sacrifice 
that  rich  ornament  (the  natural  flower  of  Gothic)  is 
praised  with  an  ardour  by  which  a  reader  to-day  may 
be  slow  to  be  enkindled ;  he  has,  without  intending 
it,  perhaps  gradually  grown  to  love  simplicity,  albeit 
conscious  that  it  is  vulgar  ornament  and  not  fine  that 
has  made  plain  masonry  to  seem  so  attractive.  But 
under  Ruskin's  teaching  this  tendency  must  be  cor- 
rected, and  in  fact  sacrificed.  Many  a  modern  man 
finds  a  charm  in  a  blank  strong  wall  that  he  knows  is 
more  than  any  negative  merit  ought  to  have  for  him. 
Such  simplicities,  he  has  to  learn, 

"  Are  but  the  rests  and  monotones  of  the  art ;  it  is 
to  its  far  happier,  far  higher,  exultation  that  we  owe 
those  fair  fronts  of  variegated  mosaic,  charged  with 
wild  fancies  and  dark  hosts  of  imagery,  thicker  and 
quainter  than  ever  filled  the  depth  of  midsummer 
dream  ;  those  vaulted  gates,  trellised  with  close  leaves  ; 
these  window-labyrinths  of  twisted  tracery  and  starry 
light ;  those  misty  masses  of  multitudinous  pinnacle 


86  JOHN    RUSK.IN 

and  diademed  tower ;  the  only  witnesses,  perhaps,  that 
remain  to  us  of  the  faith  and  fear  of  nations.  All  else 
for  which  the  builders  sacrificed  has  passed  away — all 
their  living  interest,  and  aims,  and  achievements.  We 
know  not  for  what  they  laboured,  and  we  see  no 
evidence  of  their  reward.  Victory,  wealth,  authority, 
happiness — all  have  departed,  though  bought  by  many 
a  bitter  sacrifice.  But  of  them,  and  their  life  and 
their  toil  upon  the  earth,  one  reward,  one  evidence,  is 
left  to  us  in  those  grey  heaps  of  deep-wrought  stone. 
They  have  taken  with  them  to  the  grave  their 
powers,  their  honours,  and  their  errors ;  but  they  have 
left  us  their  adoration." 

This  splendid  passage  is  itself  a  Gothic  architecture 
of  style.  It  closes  the  section  of  "  The  Lamp  of 
Sacrifice."  The  second  chapter  opens  with  a  page  of 
even  higher  beauty,  in  honour  of  the  authority  of 
Truth,  the  terrible  virtue  that  has  no  borderland  (so 
Ruskin  was  doubtless  taught  in  his  childhood ;  and  so 
he  teaches  with  his  manly  voice,  thunderous).  But 
who  that  has  dealt,  unprejudiced,  with  the  common 
matters  of  the  conscience  will  be  able  to  cry  assent  to 
such  a  doctrine  ?  Can  the  angler  who  deceives  a  fish, 
or  the  physician  who  deceives  a  lunatic,  dare  to  aver 
with  Ruskin  that  "  Truth  regards  with  the  same 
severity  the  lightest  and  the  boldest  violations  of  its 
law";  that  it  is  the  one  quality  "of  which  there  are 
no  degrees "  ;  that  whereas  "  there  are  some  faults 
slight  in  the  sight  of  love,  some  errors  slight  in  the 
estimate  of  wisdom,  truth  forgives  no  insult,  and  en- 
dures no  stain  "  ?  Assuredly  by  no  such  rhetoric  is 
this  one  virtue  to  be  separated  from  the  rest — her 


"THE  SEVEN  LAMPS  OF  ARCHITECTURE"       87 

proper  company — who  share  with  her  their  own  in- 
evitable difficulty  and  doubt.  But  it  is  not  to  be 
wondered  at  that  having  said  so  much  Ruskin  should 
find  it  necessary  to  reassure  his  readers  against  any 
possible  scruple  as  to  the  lawfulness  of  making  art  look 
like  nature.  This,  however,  as  a  scruple  of  the  moral 
conscience,  need  not  detain  us.  Incidentally  to  the 
same  subject  he  does  not  abate  of  his  estimate  of  Eng- 
land as  "  a  nation  distinguished  for  its  general  upright- 
ness and  faith,"  although  the  English  "  admit  into  their 
architecture  more  of  prudence,  concealment,  and  de- 
ceit than  any  other  [people]  of  this  or  of  past  time." 
Much  more  significance,  by  the  way,  had  on  a  former 
page  been  attributed  to  the  poor  "  exhibitory  "  shams 
of  the  modern  Italians ;  the  English  fault  is  arbitrarily 
treated  as  an  inconsistency,  the  Italian,  equally  arbi- 
trarily, as  a  consistency  quick  with  essential  impli- 
cations. Quite  removed  from  these  provocations  to 
controversy,  and  easily  detachable  from  the  ethical 
question  so  insistently  discussed,  is  a  passage  of 
characteristic  beauty  descriptive  of  the  imaginative  il- 
lusion of  the  cupola  of  Parma,  where  Correggio  has 
made  a  space  of  some  thirty  feet  diameter  "  look  like  a 
cloud-wrapt  opening  in  the  seventh  heaven,  crowded 
with  a  rushing  sea  of  angels."  Ruskin  mitigated  his 
admiration  of  Correggio  in  after  years.  A  little  later 
comes  the  page  on  tracery,  on  one  salient  passage 
whereof  I  have  already  dwelt;  and  here  is  another  ex- 
quisite example  of  this  incomparably  sensitive  per- 
ception. The  tracery  of  the  later  French  Gothic 
window  had  grown  exceedingly  delicate;  severe  and 


88  JOHN    RUSKIN 

pure  it  was  still,  nevertheless,  and  the  material  man- 
ifestly stiff.     Yet  — 

"  At  the  close  of  the  period  of  pause,  the  first  sign 
of  serious  change  was  like  a  low  breeze,  passing 
through  the  emaciated  tracery,  and  making  it  tremble. 
It  began  to  undulate  like  the  threads  of  a  cobweb  lifted 
by  the  wind.  It  lost  its  essence  as  a  structure  of 
stone.  .  .  .  The  architect  was  pleased  with  this 
new  fancy.  ...  In  a  little  time  the  bars  of 
tracery  were  caused  to  appear  to  the  eye  as  if  they  had 
been  woven  together  like  a  net." 

Of  chief  importance  in  the  chapter  dedicated  to 
"The  Lamp  of  Power"  is  Ruskin's  teaching  upon 
the  value  and  weight  of  shadows.  He  bids  the  young 
architect  learn  the  habit  of  thinking  in  shadow  :  u  Let 
him  design  with  the  sense  of  heat  and  cold  upon  him  ; 
let  him  cut  out  the  shadows,  as  men  dig  wells  in  un- 
watered  plains."  Let  him  see  that  the  light  "  is  bold 
enough  not  to  be  dried  up  by  twilight, "  and  the 
shadow  "deep  enough  not  to  be  dried  like  a  shallow 
pool  by  a  noon-day  sun."  Magnificent  image  !  An- 
other example  of  power,  intellectually  apprehended 
with  a  historian's  philosophy,  is  in  Ruskin's  study  of 
that  Gothic  of  rejection,  the  Venetian,  which  began 
in  the  luxuriance  wherein  other  architectures  have  ex- 
pired, which  laid  aside  Byzantine  ornaments  one  by 
one,  fixed  its  own  forms  "  by  laws  more  and  more 
severe,"  and  "  stood  forth,  at  last,  a  model  of  domestic 
Gothic,  so  grand,  so  complete,  so  nobly  systematised, 
that,  to  my  mind,  there  never  existed  an  architecture 
with  so  stern  a  claim  to  our  reverence."  This  judg- 


"  THE    SEVEN    LAMPS    OF    ARCHITECTURE  "         89 

ment  also  was  partly  renounced  afterwards  in  favour 
of  early  Lombard  work. 

Two  distinct  characters  in  architecture  had  been 
treated  in  the  earlier  chapters  (with  what  complex 
consistency  of  teaching,  what  abundance  of  thought, 
and  what  experimental  examples,  this  mere  indication 
of  the  subject  and  direction  of  the  work  does  not 
pretend  to  express) :  the  one,  the  impression  archi- 
tecture receives  from  human  power;  the  other,  the 
image  it  bears  of  the  natural  creation.  And  it  is  this 
likeness  to  the  "  natural  creation  "  that  is  the  subject 
of  the  fourth  chapter,  "  The  Lamp  of  Beauty." 
The  sanction  of  all  the  beauty  of  art,  its  authority, 
its  appeal,  its  origin,  its  paragon,  abide,  as  all  readers 
of  Ruskin  have  been  told  by  him  in  a  hundred  places, 
in  natural  fact.  "  Beyond  a  certain  point,  and  that  a 
very  low  one,  man  cannot  advance  in  the  invention 
of  beauty,  without  directly  imitating  natural  form." 
Furthermore,  the  frequency  of  a  form  in  nature  is,  in 
a  sense  carefully  understood,  the  measure  of  its 
beauty.  In  other  words,  that  which  is,  in  its  order 
and  place,  frequent,  easily  visible,  very  manifest,  not 
subject  to  the  concealing  counsels  of  nature  in  organic 
and  inorganic  '  depths — caverns  or  living  anatomy — 
that  is  most  natural  and  most  beautiful,  and  the  model 
of  decorative  art.  "  By  frequency  I  mean  that  lim- 
ited and  isolated  frequency  which  is  characteristic  of 
all  perfection  .  .  .  as  a  rose  is  a  common  flower, 
but  yet  there  are  not  so  many  roses  on  a  tree  as  there 
are  leaves."  Throughout  the  argument  the  teacher 
has  searched  out  his  way  sometimes  by  quick,  some- 


QO  JOHN    RUSKIN 

times  by  hard,  thinking :  but  never  in  haste,  and 
never  suppressing  any  part  or  step  of  the  sincere  proc- 
esses of  thought.  And  immediately  upon  this  eager 
but  steady  inquiry  into  the  sanction  of  artistic  beauty 
comes  the  passage  that  surprised  the  world,  in  con- 
demnation of  the  Greek  fret ;  and  with  it  one  of 
those  keen  discoveries  that  make  Ruskin's  research  so 
brilliant — the  discovery  that  there  is  a  likeness  to 
natural  form  in  the  fret,  for  it  is  an  image  of  the 
crystals  of  bismuth ;  but  that  this  crystallisation  is 
seldom  visible,  little  known,  and  not  even  perfectly 
natural,  inasmuch  it  is  brought  to  pass  by  artificial 
means,  the  mental  being  seldom  or  never  found  in 
pure  condition.  But  the  crystals  of  salt  have  a  form 
known  to  almost  every  man,  and  it  is  the  crytallisa- 
tion  of  common  salt  that  sets  the  example  of  another 
design  in  right  lines  used  throughout  the  Lombard 
churches  and  drawn  with  extraordinary  beauty  by  the 
author,  rich  with  shadow.  As  a  result  of  the  same 
kind  of  casuistic  insight  (I  put  the  word  casuistic  to 
its  right  use)  Ruskin  condemns  the  portcullis  and  all 
heraldic  decoration— especially  when,  as  usual,  it  is 
repeated.  The  arms  are  an  announcement,  and  have 
their  place,  but  what  they  have  to  tell  if  is  an  imperti- 
nence to  tell  a  score  of  times.  Nor  is  a  motto  deco- 
rative, "  since,  of  all  things  unlike  nature,  the  forms 
of  letters  are  perhaps  the  most  so."  With  the  same 
sincere  ingenuity  (here  quite  unstrained)  he  explains 
the  vileness  of  the  ribbon  and  its  unlikeness  to  grass 
and  sea-weed  with  their  anatomy,  gradation,  direction, 
and  allotted  size  of  separate  creatures.  The  ribbon 


"THE  SEVEN  LAMPS  OF  ARCHITECTURE"       91 

has  "  no  strength,  no  languor.  It  cannot  wave,  in 
the  true  sense,  but  only  flutter;  it  cannot  bend,  but 
only  turn  and  be  wrinkled."  We  are  urged  to  con- 
demn the  ribbons  of  Raphael,  and  do  so  heartily, 
even  the  ribbons  that  tie  "  Ghiberti's  glorious  bronze 
flowers,"  and  all  the  multitudes  of  scrolls  in  so  far  as 
they  are  used  for  decoration.  Let  me  add  this  ex- 
quisite phrase  (from  a  somewhat  paradoxical  passage) 
in  description  of  that  Mediaeval  treatment  of  drapery 
which  began  to  restore,  while  it  altered,  the  Antique 
buoyancy :  "  The  motion  of  the  figure  only  bent 
into  a  softer  line  the  stillness  of  the  falling  veil,  fol- 
lowed by  it  like  a  slow  cloud  by  drooping  rain :  only 
in  links  of  lighter  undulation  it  followed  the  dances 
of  the  angels." 

The  warning  against  false  decorations  is  necessarily 
a  warning  also  against  decoration  misplaced.  It  was 
spoken  in  1849.  Fifty  years  later  and  more,  the 
world  has  become  full  of  violations.  Nothing  spoken 
by  this  voice,  which  spoke  after  close  thought  and 
with  singular  authority,  has  been  disobeyed  with  a 
more  general  and  more  national  consent.  Ruskin 
pronounced  the  law  that  "  things  belonging  to  pur- 
poses of  active  and  occupied  life  "  should  not  be  dec- 
orated. The  answer  of  the  public  is  the  Greek 
moulding  on  shop-fronts,  the  decoration  of  the  tem- 
ple multiplied  in  the  railway-station,  on  the  counter, 
in  the  office ;  until  for  disgust  we  no  longer  see  it, 
and  are  but  aware  of  some  superfluity  that  is  depress- 
ing, degraded,  vulgar,  dishonouring,  and  tedious — we 
care  not  what.  The  country  has  treated  with  prac- 


92  JOHN    RUSKIN 

tical  contempt  the  humorous  and  generous  instructor 
who  in  his  youth  would  have  much  enjoyed  "  going 
through  the  streets  of  London,  pulling  down  these 
brackets  and  friezes  and  large  names,  restoring  to  the 
tradesmen  the  capital  they  had  spent  in  architecture, 
and  putting  them  on  honest  and  equal  terms,  each 
with  his  name  in  black  letters  over  his  door." 

Symmetry,  proportion,  and  colour  form  the  subjects 
of  important  passages  in  "  The  Lamp  of  Beauty." 
Vertical  equality,  against  which  a  young  architect 
ought  to  be  warned  in  his  elementary  lesson,  Ruskin 
found  to  be  usual  in  Modern  Gothic ;  it  has  not  be- 
come less  so  in  Gothic  more  modern  still.  He  would 
have  symmetry  to  belong  to  horizontal,  and  propor- 
tion to  vertical,  division  ;  symmetry  being  obviously 
connected  with  the  idea  of  balance,  which  is  only 
lateral.  Colour  on  a  building  should  be  that  of  an 
organised  creature,  and  the  colours  of  an  organised 
creature  are  visibly  independent  (this  word  must 
serve  for  lack  of  a  better)  of  the  form  of  its  limbs. 
It  is  arbitrary,  and  has  a  plan  of  .its  own — the 
plan  of  colour.  Ruskin  would  not  have  us  give 
to  separate  mouldings  separate  colours,  nor  even  to 
leaves  or  figures  one  colour  and  to  the  ground  an- 
other. And  in  general  "  the  best  place  for  colour  is 
on  broad  surfaces,  not  on  spots  of  interest  in  form." 
When  the  colouring  is  brought  to  pass  by  the  natural 
hue  of  blocks  of  marble,  the  chequers  are  not  to  be 
harmonised  or  fitted  to  the  forms  of  the  windows. 
As  in  the  Doge's  Palace,  the  front  should  look  as  if 
the  surface  had  first  been  finished,  and  the  windows 


"THE  SEVEN  LAMPS  OF  ARCHITECTURE"       93 

then  cut  out  of  it.  This  rule  of  beauty  is  distinctly 
also  a  rule  of  power.  It  is,  needless  to  say,  a  point 
of  architectural  controversy,  and  the  doctrine  of  Rus- 
kin  on  colour  has  been  held  in  horror.  He  has  on 
his  side  the  Byzantine  builders  with  their  perdurable 
colouring  by  incrustation,  and  against  him  Antiquity 
and  most  of  the  northern  Gothic  schools.  Then 
follows  the  page  on  Giotto's  tower,  model  of  propor- 
tion, design,  and  colour,  "  coloured  like  a  morning 
cloud  and  chased  like  a  sea  shell  "  : 

"  And  if  this  be,  as  I  believe  it,  the  model  and 
mirror  of  perfect  architecture,  is  there  not  something 
to  be  learned  by  looking  back  to  the  early  life  of  him 
who  raised  it  ?  I  said  that  the  power  of  human  mind 
had  its  growth  in  the  Wilderness ;  much  more  must 
the  love  and  the  conception  of  that  beauty  whose 
every  line  and  hue  we  have  seen  to  be,  at  the  least,  a 
faded  image  of  God's  daily  work,  and  an  arrested  ray 
of  some  star  of  creation,  be  given  chiefly  in  the  places 
which  He  has  gladdened  by  planting  the  fir  tree  and 
the  pine.  Not  within  the  walls  of  Florence,  but 
among  the  far  away  fields  of  her  lilies,  was  the  child 
trained  who  was  to  raise  the  headstone  of  Beauty 
above  her  towers  of  watch  and  war.  Remember  all 
that  he  became ;  count  the  sacred  thoughts  with  which 
he  filled  the  heart  of  Italy ;  ask  those  who  followed 
him  what  they  learned  at  his  feet;  and  when  you 
have  numbered  his  labours,  and  received  their  testi- 
mony, if  it  seem  to  you  that  God  had  verily  poured 
out  upon  this  His  servant  no  common  nor  restrained 
portion  of  His  Spirit,  and  that  he  was  indeed  a  King 
among  the  children  of  men,  remember  also  that  the 
legend  upon  his  crown  was  that  of  David's :  *  I  took  thee 
from  the  sheep-cote,  and  from  following  the  sheep.' " 


94  JOHN    RUSKIN 

"  No  inconsiderable  part  of  the  essential  character 
of  Beauty  depends  on  the  expression  of  vital  energy 
in  organic  things,  or  on  the  subjection  to  such  energy 
of  things  naturally  passive  and  powerless."  This  is 
amongst  the  opening  sentences  of  u  The  Lamp  of 
Life,"  and  the  theme  is  rich  in  the  hands  of  the  most 
vital  of  writers.  Even  readers  in  whose  ears  this 
eloquence  is  too  much  inflected,  too  full  of  wave,  too 
much  moved  in  its  beauty  to  be  a  perfect  style,  must 
confess  a  vitality  that  makes  the  vivacity  of  other 
authors  seem  but  a  trivial  agitation.  Ruskin  always 
carried  that  rich  internal  burden,  a  vast  capacity  of 
sincerity.  Others  may  have  been  entirely  sincere; 
and  he  could  be  no  more  than  entirely  sincere.  And 
yet  what  a  difference  in  the  degree  of  integrity  !  And 
the  measure  of  this  capacity  for  truth  is  the  measure 
of  vitality.  It  is  by  force  of  life  that  Ruskin  hoped, 
in  these  early  works  of  his,  and  by  force  of  life  that 
he  so  despaired  in  the  later  works  as  almost  to  per- 
suade himself,  for  very  grief,  that  he  cared  no  longer 
for  the  miseries  of  cities,  but  was  glad  to  enjoy  his 
days  in  peace. 

The  passage  on  dead  architecture  is  an  example  of 
the  profound  misgiving  that  has  beset  all  prophets,  a 
distrust  of  the  world  and  of  its  final  work  ;  it  is  also  a 
passage  of  literature  that  has  cost  much.  Among 
corrupted  styles  Ruskin  has  tolerance  of  that  which  is 
animated  and  unafraid — the  Flamboyant  design  of 
France.  And — because  the  question  of  life  is  locked 
(when  the  sculpture  is  that  of  natural  form)  in  the 
question  of  finish,  the  student  should  consult  these 


"  THE    SEVEN    LAMPS    OF    ARCHITECTURE  "          95 

sayings :  "  Sculpture  is  not  the  mere  cutting  of  the 
form  of  anything  in  stone ;  it  is  the  cutting  of  the 
effect  of  it.  The  sculptor  must  paint  with  his  chisel ; 
half  his  touches  are  not  to  realise,  but  to  put  power 
into,  the  form."  "The  Lamp  of  Life,"  with  its 
several  arguments  and  its  essential  significance,  is  a 
solemn  chapter  appealing  directly  to  the  obligations 
of  immortal  man;  "The  Lamp  of  Memory,"  a  most 
delicate  one,  in  which  the  author  is  all  but  compelled 
to  say  somewhat  more  than  he  could  stand  to,  and 
yet  unsays  no  more  than  a  note  will  answer.  Except 
the  page  in  which  he  had  bidden  men  to  refrain  from 
decorating  a  railway  station  (a  page  that  filled  the 
artistic  public  with  an  incredulous  surprise,  where- 
from  they  have  hardly  yet  recovered,  though,  to  do 
them  justice,  it  did  not  cause  them  to  pause  in  any 
cast-iron  work  they  might  have  been  about),  perhaps 
nothing  in  The  Seven  Lamps  has  been  found  so  mem- 
orable by  the  greater  number  of  readers  as  the  passage 
that  declares  Ruskin's  lack  of  delight  in  an  Alpine 
landscape  transposed  in  fancy  to  the  western  hemis- 
phere. "The  flowers  in  an  instant  lost  their  light, 
the  river  its  music."  "  Yet  not  all  their  light,  nor 
all  its  music,"  says  the  note.  What  then  ?  Never 
was  a  thought  more  certainly  doubtful,  double,  de- 
niable, undeniable.  Ruskin's  description  of  that 
landscape — a  description  which,  of  course,  depends 
for  its  cogency  in  the  argument  upon  the  fact  that  it 
takes  no  note  of  the  historical  interest  of  the  Alps — 
is  a  finished  work,  exquisite  with  study  of  leaf  and 
language,  but  yet  not  effective  in  proportion  to  its 


96  JOHN    RUSKIN 

own  beauty  and  truth.  Ruskin  wrote  it  in  youth,  in 
the  impulse  of  his  own  discovery  of  language,  and  of 
all  that  English  in  its  rich  modern  freshness  could  do 
under  his  mastery — and  it  is  too  much,  too  charged, 
too  anxious.  Some  sixty  lines  of  u  word-painting " 
are  here ;  and  they  are  less  than  this  line  of  a 
poet: 

"  Sunny  eve  in  some  forgotten  place." 

This  refraining  phrase  is  of  more  avail  to  the  imagi- 
nation than  the  splendid  subalpine  landscape  of  The 
Seven  Lamps.  Another  page  of  this  chapter  has  also 
become  famous — that  which  begins,  "  Do  not  let  us 
talk  then  of  Restoration.  The  thing  is  a  lie  from  be- 
ginning to  end."  The  last  lamp  is  that  of  Obedience. 
(Many  years  later,  in  Fan  Clavigera,  Ruskin  confesses 
that  he  had  much  ado  to  keep  the  Lamps  to  seven, 
they  would  so  easily  become  eight  or  nine  on  his 
hands.)  It  contains,  among  much  fruit  of  thought, 
the  author's  definite  counsel  to  the  world  as  to  the 
choice  among  the  logical  and  mature  styles  of  Euro- 
pean architecture.  He  forbids  any  infantine  or  any 
barbarous  style,  "  however  Herculean  their  infancy,  or 
majestic  their  outlawry,  such  as  our  own  Norman,  or 
the  Lombard  Romanesque."  Of  the  four  that  arc  to 
choose  from — the  Pisan  Romanesque,  the  early  Gothic 
of  the  Western  Italian  Republics,  the  Venetian  Gothic, 
and  the  English  earliest  decorated — the  architect  is 
urged  to  learn  the  laws  so  surely  that  he  may  finally 
win  the  right  of  exercising  his  own  liberty  and  inven- 
tion. And  a  manifold  meditation  on  obedience  closes 


"THE  SEVEN  LAMPS  OF  ARCHITECTURE"       97 

with  another  recollection  of  early  religious  menace 
and  expectation : 

"  I  have  paused,  not  once  or  twice,  as  I  wrote,  and 
often  have  checked  the  course  of  what  might  other- 
wise have  been  importunate  persuasion,  as  the  thought 
has  crossed  me,  how  soon  all  Architecture  may  be 
vain,  except  that  which  is  not  made  with  hands. 
There  is  something  ominous  in  the  light  which  has 
enabled  us  to  look  back  with  disdain  upon  the  ages 
among  whose  lovely  vestiges  we  have  been  wandering. 
I  could  smile  when  I  hear  the  hopeful  exultation  of 
many,  at  the  new  reach  of  worldly  science,  and  vigour 
of  worldly  effort ;  as  if  we  were  again  at  the  begin- 
ning of  days.  There  is  thunder  on  the  horizon  as 
well  as  dawn.  The  sun  was  risen  upon  the  earth 
when  Lot  entered  Zoar." 

A  reader  with  the  world-pitying  heart  of  the  world 
of  our  later  day  is  dismayed  at  the  severity  and  at  the 
calm  of  this  universal  threat.  The  visionary  beauty 
of  the  phrase  has  none  of  that  grief  which  is  heard  in 
the  vaticination  of  another  prophetic  author,  Coventry 
Patmore,  who  yet  menaced  not  the  whole  world  but 
one  degenerate  land,  foretelling  the  day  when  — 

"  A  dim  heroic  nation,  long  since  dead, 
The  foulness  of  her  agony  forgot  " — 

England  shall  be  remembered  only  by  her  then  dead 
language — "  the  bird-voice  and  the  blast  of  her  omnil- 
oquent  tongue." 


CHAPTER  VII 
"THE  STONES  OF  VENICE"  (1851-1853) 

RUSKIN,  penetrated  with  a  sense  of  the  "  baseness 
of  the  schools  of  architecture  and  nearly  every  other 
art,  which  have  for  three  centuries  been  predominant 
in  Europe,"  wrote  this  book  principally  in  order  to 
convict  those  base  schools,  locally,  in  their  central 
degradation.  Locally,  because  in  Venice,  and  in 
Venice  only,  could  the  Renaissance  be  effectually 
reached,  judged,  and  sentenced.  "  Destroy  its  claims 
to  admiration  there  "  (when  Ruskin  began  his  work 
they  were  triumphant)  "  and  it  can  assert  them  no- 
where else."  He  intended  to  make  the  Stones  of 
Venice  touchstones,  and  to  detect,  "  by  the  moulder- 
ing of  her  marble,  poison  more  subtle  than  ever  was 
betrayed  by  the  rending  of  her  crystal."  And  be- 
yond this — one  of  the  most  interesting  and  definite 
motives  that  ever  urged  the  making  of  a  book — stands 
the  inevitable  argument  of  his  life :  "  Men  are  in- 
tended, without  excessive  difficulty  ...  to  know 
good  things  from  bad." 

The  work  is  thus  local  because  the  u  festering  lily  " 
of  Shakespeare  had  its  unique  foulness  in  Venice. 
That  city  had  been  in  an  early  age  of  her  long  history 
the  central  meeting-place  of  the  Lombard  from  the 
north  and  the  Arab  from  the  south  over  the  wreck 
98 


"  THE    STONES    OF    VENICE  "  99 

of  the  Roman  empire.  It  was  through  this  fruitful 
encounter  that  the  Ducal  Palace  became  "  the  central 
building  of  the  world."  All  European  architecture 
derives  from  Greece,  through  Rome,  and  the  condi- 
tions of  place  and  of  race  bring  to  pass  the  all-unique 
variety  of  derivation.  In  Venice  the  variety  was  also 
all-important ;  and  Ruskin  begins  the  study  of  the 
art  in  its  rise,  greatness,  decline,  and  last  corruption, 
by  a  brief  but  large  history  of  this  nation,  standing, 
as  a  sea-nation,  a  ruin  between  Tyre  (no  more  than 
a  memory)  and  England  still  imperial.  He  divides 
the  national  life  of  Venice,  between  the  nine  hundred 
years  from  her  foundation  (421  A.  D.)  and  the  five 
hundred  years  of  her  decline  and  fall,  by  the  measure 
called  the  Serrar  del  Consiglio,  which  finally  and 
fatally  distinguished  the  nobles  from  the  commonalty, 
and  withdrew  the  power  from  the  people  and  the 
Doge  alike.  "  Ah,  well  done,  Venice !  Wisdom 
this,  indeed  ! "  had  been  Ruskin's  note  to  Sansovino's 
summary  of  the  constitution  of  Venice  before  the 
Serrar  del  Consiglio :  "  She  found  means  to  commit 
the  government  not  to  one,  not  to  few,  not  to  many, 
but  to  the  many  good,  to  the  few  better,  and  to  the 
best  one."  Ruskin  places  the  beginning  of  the  de- 
cline in  1418  ;  so  that  even  her  religious  painters 
came  later,  and  her  great  school  about  a  century  later, 
more  or  less.  The  sensitive  arts  of  architecture  and 
sculpture  seem  to  have  taken  the  mortal  hurt  more 
quickly  than  the  art  of  painting,  incorrupt  in  Venice 
later  than  elsewhere  by  reason  of  the  life  of  its  in- 
comparable colour.  In  the  introductory  chapter, 


IOO  JOHN    RUSKIN 

"  The  Quarry/'  Ruskin  gives  us  that  instance  of  the 
tombs  of  the  two  Doges  which  is  an  example  of  the 
great  essential  contention  of  the  book.  The  one 
tomb,  not  primitive,  not  altogether  fine,  an  early  fif- 
teenth-century work,  has  a  nobility  yet  unforegone; 
the  other,  half  a  century  later,  is  the  tomb  of  Andrea 
Vendramin,  the  most  costly  ever  bestowed  on  a  Vene- 
tian monarch,  praised  by  popular  taste  and  authorita- 
tive criticism  with  all  their  superlatives,  while  the 
other  was  contemned.  Climbing  to  see  more  of  this 
later  effigy,  which  he  perceived  to  be  ignoble,  Ruskin 
found  that  the  much  vaunted  sculptured  hand,  in 
sight,  had  no  fellow  but  a  block,  and  so  with  the  aged 
brow,  wrinkled  only  where  it  might  be  seen,  the  aged 
cheek,  smooth,  and  also  distorted,  where  it  lay  out  of 
sight.  Ruskin  would  have  had  nothing  but  praise 
for  treatment  of  sculpture  according  to  the  position 
of  the  effigy  ;  but  this  was  another  matter : 

u  Who,  with  a  heart  in  his  breast,  could  have  stayed 
his  hand,  as  he  reached  the  bend  of  the  grey  forehead, 
and  measured  out  the  last  veins  of  it  as  so  much  the 
zecchin  ?  " 

It  was  not  necessary  that  Ruskin  should  follow  up 
this  sculptor  and  find  him  condemned  for  forgery;  his 
own  sentence  strikes  close  enough. 

The  lesson  on  architecture  that  follows  is  offered 
to  a  reader  who  is  to  be  taught  to  build  and  to  dec- 
orate, and  who,  in  order  thereto,  is  to  be  set  free 
from  the  poor  fiction — is  it  even  so  much  ?  has  it  life 
enough  for  feigning  ? — that  the  decorations  of  the 


41  THE    STONES    OF    VENICE"  IOI 

modern  world  are  delightful  to  man.  "  Do  you  seri- 
ously imagine,"  asks  our  teacher,  "  that  any  living 
soul  in  London  likes  triglyphs  ?  .  .  .  Greeks 
did  :  English  people  never  did,  and  never  will." 

"  The  first  thing  we  have  to  ask  of  decoration  is 
that  it  should  indicate  strong  liking.  .  .  .  The 
old  Lombard  architects  liked  hunting :  so  they  cov- 
ered their  work  with  horses  and  hounds. 
The  base  Renaissance  architects  liked  masquing  and 
fiddling;  so  they  covered  their  work  with  comic 
masks  and  musical  instruments.  Even  that  was  bet- 
ter than  our  English  way  of  liking  nothing  and  pro- 
fessing to  like  triglyphs." 

Ruskin  calls  upon  us  for  deliberate  question  and 
upright  answer  as  to  our  affections. 

But  first  comes  the  long  historical  lesson  on  con- 
struction :  on  the  wall,  which  is  so  built  that  it  is  not 
"  dead  wall  " ;  on  the  pier,  the  base,  the  shaft,  with  a 
special  emphasis  upon  the  transition  from  the  actual 
to  the  apparent  cluster,  illustrated  by  plans ;  on  arch 
masonry,  the  arch  load,  the  roof,  and  the  buttress. 
Of  all  this,  obviously,  no  indication  in  this  summary 
is  possible.  The  introductory  lesson  on  decoration  is 
another  version  of  the  often-repeated  teaching  on 
natural  form : 

"  All  the  lovely  forms  of  the '  universe  .  .  . 
whence  to  choose,  and  all  the  lovely  lines  that  bound 
their  substance  or  guide  their  motion.  .  . 
There  is  material  enough  in  a  single  flower  for  the 
ornament  of  a  score  of  cathedrals :  but  suppose  we 
were  satisfied  with  less  exhaustive  appliance,  and  built 


IO2  JOHN    RUSKIN 

a  score  of  cathedrals  each  to  illustrate  a  single  flower  ? 
that  would  be  better  than  trying  to  invent  new  styles, 
I  think.  There  is  quite  difference  of  style  enough, 
between  a  violet  and  a  hare-bell,  for  all  reasonable 
purposes." 

Who  can  read  such  a  passage  and  not  have  gained 
a  new  felicity  ?  We  owe  the  exquisite  thought  and 
phrase  (at  least  in  regard  to  its  occasion)  to  that  folly 
of  the  time  wherein  the  book  was  written — the  hope 
that  a  new  kind  of  architecture  was  to  come  to  pass 
through  the  initiative  of  the  Crystal  Palace.  John 
Ruskin  consents  to  pause  and  refute  that  idle  boast. 
"  The  earth  hath  bubbles  as  the  water  hath,"  he  says 
of  the  Sydenham  "  palace,"  "  and  this  is  of  them." 
To  return  to  this  inexhaustible  theme  of  the  natural 
form  ;  Ruskin  opposes  Garnett,  a  writer  who  com- 
mends art  (as  writers  on  art  have  done  at  least  every 
ten  years  since  then)  for  its  correction  of  nature. 
Art,  according  to  Garnett,  is  to  criticise  nature  by 
her  own  rules  gathered  from  all  her  works,  and  he 
quotes  the  saying  recorded  of  Raphael,  "  that  the 
artist's  object  was  to  make  things  not  as  nature  made 
them  but  as  nature  would  make  them."  Ruskin 
replies : 

"  I  had  thought  that,  by  this  time,  we  had  done 
with  that  stale  .  .  .  and  misunderstood  saying. 
Raffaelle  was  a  painter  of  humanity,  and 
assuredly  there  is  something  the  matter  with  human- 
ity, a  few  dovrebbe's  more  or  less,  wanting  in  it.  We 
have  most  of  us  heard  of  original  sin,  and  may  per- 
haps, in  our  modest  moments,  conjecture  that  we  are 


"THE  STONES  OF  VENICE"  103 

not  quite  what  God,  or  Nature,  would  have  us  to  be. 
Raffaelle  bad  something  to  mend  in  humanity :  I 
should  have  liked  to  have  seen  him  mending  a  daisy, 
or  a  pease-blossom,  or  a  moth." 

Then  follows  a  page  on  the  succession  of  the 
waves  of  the  irregular  sea.  Not  one  of  these  hits  "  the 
great  ideal  shape,"  the  corrected  shape,  nor  will  if  we 
watch  them  for  a  thousand  years. 

In  the  appendix  to  the  first  volume  we  may  read 
much  theology  of  Ruskin's  own  writing  and  of  his 
father's,  directed  against  the  idea  of  a  teaching 
Church,  and  showing  him  to  be  so  docile  a  son  as  to 
follow  his  father  not  only  in  regard  to  "  eternal  inter- 
ests "  but  also  in  regard  to  temporal  prosperity.  If 
you  care  little  for  the  first,  says  the  elder  Ruskin  in 
effect,  you  must  needs  care  for  the  second,  and  Prot- 
estantism means  the  wealth  of  nations.  Not  many 
years  later,  when  he  wrote  Unto  this  Last,  John 
Ruskin  had  thought  his  own  thoughts  on  the  wealth 
of  nations,  and  his  father  was  amongst  the  dismayed 
readers.  A  more  valuable  page  of  the  appendix  is 
that  which  declares  the  rapid  judgment  to  which 
Ruskin  intends  by  Stones  of  Venice  to  train  the  reader 
— or  rather  for  which  he  intends  to  set  the  reader  free 
— to  be  attainable  in  painting  as  well  as  in  architec- 
ture. We  ought  by  a  side-glance,  as  we  walk  down 
a  gallery,  to  tell  a  good  painting ;  because,  as  in  archi- 
tecture structure  and  expression  are  united,  so  in 
painting  are  execution  and  expression.  Who  will 
say,  after  this,  that  Ruskin  sought  too  much  for  sym- 
bolism and  allusion  and  the  less  pictorial  characters 


IO4  JOHN    RUSK.IN 

of  art  ?  "  The  business  of  a  painter  is  to  paint." 
He  gave  years  of  his  life  to  Veronese,  in  whom  the 
emotions  were  altogether  subordinate.  In  fact  Ruskin 
is  the  most  liberal  and  universal  of  all  lovers  and 
critics  of  art,  having  eyes  for  all  manners  as  for  all 
matters : 

u  A  man  long  trained  to  love  the  monk's  visions  of 
Angelico  turns  in  proud  and  ineffable  disgust  from  the 
first  work  of  Rubens  ...  he  encounters  across 
the  Alps.  ...  He  has  forgotten  that  while  An- 
gelico prayed  and  wept  .  .  .  there  was  different 
work  doing  in  the  dank  fields  of  Flanders ; — wild  seas 
to  be  banked  out ;  hard  ploughing  and  har- 

rowing of  the  frosty  clay ;  careful  breeding  of  stout 
horses  and  fat  cattle,  .  .  .  rough  affections  and 
sluggish  imaginations,  fleshy,  substantial,  iron-shod 
humanities.  .  .  .  And  are  we  to  suppose  there  is 
no  nobility  in  Rubens  ?  masculine  and  universal  sym- 
pathy with  all  this  ?  .  .  .  On  the  other  hand,  a 
man  trained  ...  in  our  Sir  Joshua  school,  will 
not  and  cannot  allow  that  there  is  any  art  at  all  in  the 
technical  work  of  Angelico.  .  .  .  We  have  been 
taught  in  England  to  think  there  can  be  no  virtue  but 
in  a  loaded  brush  and  rapid  hand  •,  but  .  .  .  there 
is  art  also  in  the  delicate  point  and  in  the  hand  which 
trembles  as  it  moves,  not  because  it  is  more  liable  to 
err  but  because  there  is  more  danger  in  its  error." 

In  the  second  volume  the  study  of  St.  Mark's  is 
prefaced  by  that  of  the  churches  of  Torcello  and  of 
Murano,  those  ancient  villages  whence  in  part  Venice 
received  her  people.  It  is  in  the  marble-mosaic  Murano 
pavement  of  1 140 — "  one  of  the  most  precious  monu- 
ments in  Italy  "  —that  the  eye  which  replied  with  the 


"THE  STONES  OF  VENICE"  105 

splendour  of  its  gift  of  vision  to  the  splendour  of  the 
Venetian  brush  discovered  the  first  Venetian  colour. 
As  to  Byzantine  building  Ruskin  teaches  us  the  im- 
portance of  this  fact — that  it  is  a  style  of  "  confessed 
incrustation,"  and  shows  us  how  far  this  fact  carries. 
Venice  on  her  islands,  hard  by  a  sandy  and  marshy 
coast,  and  in  traffic  with  the  East,  built  with  the  meaner 
materials  and  faced  them  with  the  marbles  of  her 
commerce.  Her  coloured  architecture  became  rather 
flat,  rather  small,  as  well  as  precious,  carrying  porphyry, 
alabaster,  and  gold,  and  later  the  less  perdurable  but 
more  precious  colours  of  her  painters.  Incrustation 
is  obviously  "  the  only  permanent  chromatic  decora- 
tion possible,"  as  we  know  who  trace  with  mixed 
feelings  the  vestiges  of  the  Gothic  painter  at  Bourges 
and  at  Winchester,  in  chocolate  and  green.  Here,  at 
St.  Mark's,  is  no  opaque  surface-painting  of  the  paint- 
er's mixing,  but  the  colour  of  nature  in  jasper  and 
marble,  into  which  the  light  makes  some  way :  "  mar- 
bles that  half  refuse  and  half  yield  to  the  sunshine, 
Cleopatra-like,  their  c  bluest  veins  to  kiss.'  "  Certain 
characters  of  construction  and  of  decoration  are  im- 
plied by  incrustation  :  for  example,  the  delicacy  that 
is  to  distinguish  the  plinths  and  cornices  used  for  bind- 
ing this  rich  armature  from  those  that  are  essential 
parts  of  the  solid  building ;  the  abandonment  of  nearly 
all  expression  in  the  body  of  the  building,  except  that 
of  strength,  so  that  the  Byzantine  building  shows  no 
anxiety  to  disturb  open  surfaces ;  the  solidity  of  the 
shafts,  however  precious  in  material,  as  an  instinctive 
amends  for  the  thinness  of  the  precious  surface  on  the 


IO6  JOHN    RUSKIN 

walls ;  and  the  consequent  variable  size  of  the  shafts, 
as  rubies  in  a  carcanet  have  the  differences  proper  to 
their  single  values,  and  the  emeralds  of  two  ear-rings 
are  not  absolutely  alike ;  shallow  cutting  of  the  dec- 
oration, so  that  here  are  none  of  the  hollows  and 
hiding-places  proper  to  the  stone-work  of  the  north. 
On  this  serene  and  sunny  construction  the  decorator 
worked  as  one  who  traces  a  tine  drawing,  subduing 
and  controlling  figure  and  drapery  to  the  surface  of 
his  film  of  marble.  Little  have  they  read  this  book 
who  currently  discuss  the  fanaticism  of  Ruskin  in  the 
matter  of  "  truth,"  and  charge  him  with  so  bigoted  a 
love  of  integrity  as  to  forbid  the  use  of  a  marble  sur- 
face on  a  construction  of  commoner  substance ;  an 
architect  accuses  him  of  this  to-day  as  easily  as  a 
painter  to-morrow  will  aver  that  Ruskin  did  not  per- 
mit him  to  choose  what  he  would  record,  but  com- 
pelled him  to  record  all  that  was  before  him.  It  is  as 
the  chief  of  the  lovers  of  colour  that  Ruskin  is  the 
apologist  of  an  incrusted  church  simply  condemned  as 
41  ugly  "  by  the  taste  of  the  guides  of  the  world — that 
St.  Mark's  which  was  to  him  "a  confusion  of  de- 
light," a  "  chain  of  language  and  life,"  that  St.  Mark's 
which  he  read,  not  in  Gothic  darkness  and  effort,  but 
clearly,  with  the  clearness  of  white  dome  and  sky. 
No  sign  of  carelessness  of  heart,  to  him,  was  the  col- 
our of  Venice,  but  a  solemn  investiture.  As  to  the 
form,  I  may  do  no  more  here  than  record  the  little 
spray  of  leaves  he  draws  on  a  page  of  Stones  of  Venice, 
with  a  subtle  difference  in  the  progression  of  the  pro- 
portions amongst  the  seven  leaves ;  and  when  you  are 


"THE  STONES  OF  VENICE"  107 

penetrated  with  the  grace  of  these  single  things  in 
their  inter-relation,  you  read  that  these  are  the  pro- 
portions of  the  facade  of  St.  Mark's.  Who  but  he 
has  given  a  reader  such  a  happy  moment  ?  And  as 
for  the  Byzantine  spirit,  he  cries,  of  St.  Mark's,  "  No 
city  had  such  a  Bible."  He  perceives  in  it 

"  That  mighty  humanity,  so  perfect  and  so  proud, 
that  hides  no  weakness  beneath  the  mantle,  and  gains 
no  greatness  from  the  diadem ;  the  majesty  of  thought- 
ful form,  on  which  the  dust  of  gold  and  flame  of  jew- 
els are  dashed,  as  the  sea-spray  upon  the  rock,  and 
still  the  great  Manhood  seems  to  stand  bare  against 
the  sky." 

The  following  section,  on  the  nature  of  Gothic,  is 
one  of  the  most  important  chapters  of  Ruskin's  archi- 
tectural work. 

Let  it  be  remembered  that  he  chose  the  Gothic  of 
Venice  for  the  sake  of  its  local  succession  to  this  local 
Byzantine  work.  But  he  prefaces  the  lesson  with  a 
study  of  universal  Gothic, — the  Gothic  of  such  almost 
abstract  quality  as  would  be  difficult  to  define,  even 
as  red  would  be  difficult  to  describe  to  one  who  had 
not  seen  it,  but  who  must  be  told  that  it  was  the  col- 
our mingled  with  blue  to  make  this  violet,  and  with 
yellow  to  make  yonder  orange.  Universal  Gothic, 
like  other  great  architecture,  began  with  artless  utter- 
ance. 

"  It  is  impossible  to  calculate  the  enormous  loss 
of  power  in  modern  days  owing  to  the  imperative  re- 
quirement that  art  shall  be  methodical  and  learned." 


IO8  JOHN    RUSKIN 

For  there  will  always  be  "  more  intellect  than  there 
can  be  education."  But  Gothic  was  in  a  special  man- 
ner the  work  of  the  savage  intellect,  of  the  inventor, 
the  intellectual  workman ;  it  has  not  the  same  word 
to  repeat,  but  the  perpetual  novelty  of  life.  And,  to 
the  Gothic  workman,  living  foliage — no  longer  the 
mere  "  explanatory  accessory  "  of  Lombardic  or  Ro- 
manesque sculpture — became  "  a  subject  of  intense 
affection. "  Here  is  an  incomparable  Ruskin  thought : 
the  love  of  change,  he  tells  us,  that  was  in  the  char- 
acter of  the  Gothic  sculptor,  restless  in  following  the 
hunt  or  the  battle,  u  is  at  once  soothed  and  satisfied  as 
it  watches  the  wandering  of  the  tendril,  and  the  bud- 
ding of  the  flower."  And  here  a  Ruskin  phrase,  also 
in  its  place  incomparable :  u  Greek  and  Egyptian  or- 
nament is  either  mere  surface  engraving  ...  or 
its  lines  are  flowing,  lithe,  and  luxuriant.  .  .  . 
But  the  Gothic  ornament  stands  out  in  prickly  inde- 
pendence, and  frosty  fortitude,  jutting  into  crockets, 
and  freezing  into  pinnacles."  In  the  same  chapter  is, 
amongst  others,  an  admirable  page  upon  redundance 
as  a  quality,  not,  needless  to  say,  of  all  fine  Gothic, 
but  of  the  Gothic  that  is  most  full  of  all  Gothic 
qualities,  and  especially  the  Gothic  quality  of  humility  : 
"  That  humility  which  is  the  very  life  of  the  Gothic 
school  is  shown  not  only  in  the  imperfection,  but  in 
the  accumulation,  of  ornament." 

With  the  selfsame  care  are  the  many  Gothic  con- 
structions of  Venice  discovered  by  Ruskin's  research 
as  the  few  Byzantine ;  nearly  all,  except  the  Ducal 
Palace,  suffer  from  "the  continual  juxtaposition  of  the 


"THE  STONES  OF  VENICE"  109 

Renaissance  palaces;  .  .  .  they  exhaust  their 
own  life  by  breathing  it  into  the  Renaissance  cold- 
ness." The  Ducal  Palace,  according  to  Ruskin,  was 
a  work  of  sudden  Gothic.  It  is  unlike  the  true 
transitional  work  done  between  the  final  cessation  of 
pure  Byzantine  building,  about  1300,  and  its  own 
date — 1320  to  1350.  The  struggle  between  Byzan- 
tine and  Gothic  (formed  on  the  mainland)  had  been 
one  of  equals,  equally  organised  and  vital.  Ruskin 
shows  us  the  brilliant  contest,  with  here  and  there  a 
bit  of  true  Gothic  tangled  and  taken  prisoner  till  its 
friends  should  come  up  and  sustain  it.  And  of  the 
Gothic  victory  the  English  reader  (Ruskin  writes,  in 
spite  of  all,  for  the  ultra-English  reader,  the  insular, 
the  suburban,  the  very  churchwarden)  should  note 
that  the  Venetian  houses  were  the  refined  and  ornate 
dwellings  of  "  a  nation  as  laborious,  as  practical,  as 
brave,  and  as  prudent  as  ourselves.  ...  At 
Venice,  .  .  .  Vicenza,  Padua,  and  Verona  the 
traveller  may  ascertain,  by  actual  experience,  the 
effect  which  would  be  produced  upon  the  comfort 
and  luxury  of  daily  life  by  the  revival  of  Gothic 
architecture " ;  he  may  see  the  unruined  traceries 
against  the  summer  sky,  or  "  may  close  the  casements 
fitted  to  their  unshaken  shafts  against  such  wintry 
winds  as  would  have  made  an  English  house  vibrate 
to  its  foundations."  "  I  trust,"  said  Ruskin,  and  his 
lesson  has  in  part  been  learnt  since  then,  "  that  there 
will  come  a  time  when  the  English  people  may  see 
the  folly  of  building  basely  and  insecurely."  The 
reader  is  led  then  at  last  to  the  Ducal  Palace,  and,  in 


110  JOHN    RUSK.IN 

honour  of  its  sculptures,  to  a  chapter  on  that  great 
book  of  the  Virtues  as  the  Christian  Venice  honoured 
them ;  from  that  chapter  I  must  save  this  sentence  on 
Plato — that  the  "  moral  virtues  may  be  found  in  his 
writings  defined  in  the  most  noble  manner,  as  a  great 
painter  defines  his  figures,  without  outlines." 

When  Gothic  architecture  came  to  the  conquest 
of  Byzantine  in  Venice,  both  were  noble ;  but  when, 
in  a  later  age,  the  Renaissance  architecture  attacked 
the  Gothic,  neither  was  purely  noble.  Ruskin  shows 
us  that  "  unless  luxury  had  enervated  and  subtlety 
falsified  the  Gothic  forms,  Roman  traditions  could 
not  have  prevailed  against  them."  The  corrupt 
Gothic  had  become  luxurious ;  "  in  some  of  the  best 
Gothic  .  .  .  there  is  hardly  an  inch  of  stone 
left  unsculptured  " ;  but  the  decadent  Gothic  is  at 
once  extravagant  and  jaded.  Against  this  degraded 
architecture  "  came  the  Renaissance  armies ;  and 
their  first  assault  was  in  the  requirement  of  universal 
perfection."  The  Renaissance  workmen  lost  origi- 
nality of  thought  and  tenderness  of  feeling,  for  the 
sake  of  their  dexterity  of  touch  and  accuracy  of 
knowledge. 

"  The  thought  and  the  feeling  which  they  despised 
departed  from  them,  and  they  were  left  to  felicitate 
themselves  on  their  small  science  and  their  neat 
fingering.  This  is  the  history  of  the  first  attack  of 
the  Renaissance  upon  the  Gothic  schools. 
Now  do  not  let  me  be  misunderstood  when  I  speak 
generally  of  the  evil  spirit  of  the  Renaissance.  The 
reader  .  .  .  will  not  find  one  word  but  of  the 
most  profound  reverence  for  those  mighty  men  who 


"  THE    STONES    OF    VENICE  "  III 

could  wear  the  Renaissance  armour  of  proof,  and  yet 
not  feel  it  encumber  their  living  limbs — Leonardo  and 
Michael  Angelo,  Ghirlandajo  and  Masaccio,  Titian 
and  Tintoret.  But  I  speak  of  the  Renaissance  as  an 
evil  time,  because,  when  it  saw  those  men  go  burning 
forth  into  the  battle,  it  mistook  their  armour  for  their 
strength  ;  and  forthwith  encumbered  with  the  painful 
panoply  every  stripling  who  ought  to  have  gone  forth 
only  with  his  own  choice  of  three  smooth  stones  out 
of  the  brook." 

Full  of  significance  (I  must  take  but  one  detail 
from  this  history  of  decline)  is  the  fact  that  even  in 
the  finest  examples  of  early  Renaissance,  where  it  was 
mingled  with  reminiscences  of  the  Byzantine  chro- 
matic work,  the  coloured  marble  was  no  longer  a 
simple  part  of  the  masonry  but  was  framed  and  repre- 
sented as  hanging  by  ribbons.  Of  the  central  archi- 
tecture of  the  Renaissance,  the  Casa  Grimani  stands, 
in  Ruskin's  noble  praises,  as  the  best  example.  With 
the  Vicenza  Town  Hall,  with  St.  Peter's,  Whitehall, 
and  St.  Paul's,  this  palace  represents  the  building  that 
has  been  set  before  the  student,  from  the  date  of  its 
invention  to  the  day  of  the  writing  of  the  Stones  of 
Venice,  as  the  antagonist  of  the  barbarous  genius. 
None  the  less  was  it  a  sign  of  the  general  withdrawal 
of  architecture  into  "  earthliness,  out  of  all  that  was 
warm  and  heavenly."  In  its  central  works  the  Ve- 
netian Renaissance  set  up  statues  of  the  ancient  Ve- 
netian virtues  Temperance  and  Justice ;  but  these 
figures  were  furnished — as  neither  the  left  hand  of 

O 

the  one  nor  the  right  hand  of  the  other  could  be  seen 
from  below — with  one  hand  each. 


112  JOHN    RUSKIN 

"  Its  dragons  are  covered  with  marvellous  scales, 
but  have  no  terror  or  sting  in  them ;  its  birds  are 
perfect  in  plumage,  but  have  no  song  in  them  ;  its 
children  are  lovely  of  limb,  but  have  no  childishness 
in  them." 

The  effigies  upon  its  tombs  evaded  the  thought  of 
death;  its  figure  of  the  dead  first  indented  the  pillow 
"  naturally,"  then  rose  on  its  elbow  and  looked  about 
it,  and  finally  stepped  out  of  the  tomb  for  public  ap- 
plause, not  with  virtues,  but  with  fame  and  victory, 
for  companions.  Ruskin  takes  us,  through  the  stages 
of  corruption,  to  the  curtains  and  ropes,  fringes, 
tassels,  cherubs,  the  impotence  of  expression,  the 
passionless  folly,  of  the  seventeenth  century,  more 
foul  in  Venice  than  elsewhere  as  the  thing  corrupted 
had  been  the  best.  Infidelity,  Pride  of  State,  Pride 
of  System  (or  the  confidence  of  definitely  observable 
laws  that  never  enabled  man  to  do  a  great  thing,  and 
albeit  literature  and  painting  could  break  through, 
architecture  could  not) — these  were  the  causes  of  the 
derogation  of  Venice.  The  rod  had  blossomed,  pride 
had  budded,  violence  had  risen  up.  The  chapter 
following  this  on  the  Roman  Renaissance  deals  with 
the  Grotesque  of  the  Renaissance  ;  it  shows  us  the 
mocking  head — inhuman,  weak,  and  finely  finished, 
carved  upon  the  base  of  the  tower  of  Santa  Maria 
Formosa,  one  of  many  hundreds  to  be  found  upon 
the  later  buildings.  As  the  grotesque  was,  to  Ruskin's 
mind,  at  its  noblest  in  Dante  (yet  heaven  help  us, 
wretched  race  of  man,  if  Dante's  laugh  is  to  be  our 
mirth !)  so  it  was  at  its  thinnest  and  most  malicious 


"THE  STONES  OF  VENICE"  113 

in  Renaissance  ornament  in  Venice.     That  ornament 
closes  the  architecture  of  Europe. 

But  the  conclusion  of  this  great  book  is  an  appeal 
not  to  despair,  but  to  the  hope  of  the  race.  It  is  a 
race  still  in  its  infancy,  says  John  Ruskin,  if  we  may 
take  as  tokens  of  puerility  its  foolish  condemnation  of 
the  only  work  of  art  (Turner's)  that  was  true  to  the 
science  and  truth  professed  by  the  age  ;  its  misunder- 
standing of  social  and  economic  principles,  so  that  it 
preached  those  impossibilities  "  liberty  "  and  "  equal- 
ity," and  yet  in  no  single  nation  dared  to  shut  up  its 
custom-houses  ;  its  profession  of  charity  and  self-sac- 
rifice for  the  practice  of  individual  man  and  its  re- 
jection thereof  for  the  practice  of  the  State.  If  man- 
kind, then,  was  childish,  it  might  be  taught.  And 
how  much,  in  by-ways  of  opinion,  the  world  did  learn 
from  Ruskin,  of  true  learning,  may  be  seen  from  an 
incident  of  this  last  chapter,  in  which  he  rebukes  the 
painters  of  his  day  for  painting  Italy  without  olive- 
trees  !  This  they  did  because  their  teachers  thought 
trees  ought  not  to  be  known  from  one  another,  and 
you  certainly  cannot  make  olives  like  any  other  tree 
of  the  hillside.  "  The  very  school  which  carries  its 
science  in  the  representation  of  man  down  to  the 
dissection  of  the  most  minute  muscle,  refuses  so  much 
science  to  the  drawing  of  a  tree  as  shall  distinguish 
one  species  from  another."  Then  follows  a  magnifi- 
cent apology  for  the  barbaric  olive  as  the  dome  of  St. 
Mark's  has  it,  and  this  allusion  to  the  trees  of  the 
painters : 


114  JOHN    RUSKIN 

"  A  few  strokes  of  the  pencil,  or  dashes  of  colour, 
will  be  enough  to  enable  the  imagination  to  conceive  a 
tree;  and  in  those  dashes  of  colour  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds 
would  have  rested,  and  would  have  suffered  the  imag- 
ination to  paint  what  more  it  liked  for  itself,  and  grow 
oaks,  or  olives,  or  apples,  out  of  the  few  dashes  of 
colour  at  its  leisure.  On  the  other  hand,  Hobbema, 
one  of  the  worst  of  the  realists,  smites  the  imagination 
on  the  mouth,  and  bids  it  be  silent,  while  he  sets  to 
work  to  paint  his  oak  of  the  right  green." 

The  painters  of  to-day,  worthy  the  name,  paint 
olives,  and  the  world  has  been  changed  in  other  ways; 
but  it  has  not  begun  to  restore  a  great  time. 

For  to  the  book,  in  so  far  as  it  is  a  book  of  persua- 
sion, there  is  this  reply,  and  against  it  this  contention  : 
that  it  persuades  to  that  whereto  no  man  nor  men  can 
attain  by  any  means  they  can  be  persuaded  to  lay  hands 
upon.  The  German  painters,  for  example,  of  the 
Overbeck  school  had  doubtless  a  good  will  to  paint 
as  they  should,  and  as  Ruskin's  teaching  would  ap- 
prove. But  here  is  what  he  very  rightly  thought  of 
them : 

41 1  know  not  anything  more  melancholy  than  the 
sight  of  the  German  cartoon,  with  its  objective  side 
and  its  subjective  side;  and  mythological  division  and 
symbolical  division  ;  its  allegorical  sense  and  literal 
sense ;  and  ideal  point  of  view  and  intellectual  point 
of  view  ;  its  heroism  of  well-made  armour  and  knitted 
brows  .  .  . ;  and  twenty  innocent  dashes  of  the 
hand  of  one  God-made  painter,  poor  old  Bassano  or 
Bonifazio,  were  worth  it  all,  and  worth  it  ten  thou- 
sand times  over." 


41  THE    STONES    OF    VENICE"  115 

Whereto,  then,  is  the  persuasion  of  this  book  di- 
rected ?  As  a  book  of  history  and  of  meditation  on 
character  and  art  it  does  its  work;  but  does  it  not  it- 
self show  us  that  as  a  book  of  persuasion  it  can  do  no 
work,  for  there  is  no  work  to  be  done  ?  Is  a  man  to 
be  persuaded,  convinced,  or  converted  to  be  such  a 
man  as  this  of  Ruskin's  description  ? 

"  It  is  no  more  art  to  lay  on  colour  delicately 
than  to  lay  on  acid  [the  acid  of  the  photographer  is 
meant]  delicately.  It  is  no  more  art  to  use  the  cornea 
and  retina  for  the  reception  of  an  image  than  to  use  a 
lens  and  a  piece  of  silvered  paper.  But  the  moment 
that  inner  part  of  the  man,  or  rather  that  entire  and  only 
being  of  the  man,  of  which  cornea  and  retina,  fingers 
and  hands,  pencils  and  colours,  are  all  the  mere  serv- 
ants and  instruments ;  that  manhood  has  light  in  it- 
self, though  the  eyeball  be  sightless,  and  can  gain  in 
strength  when  the  hand  and  the  foot  are  hewn  off  and 
cast  into  the  fire ;  the  moment  this  part  of  the  man 
stands  forth  with  its  solemn  4  Behold,  it  is  I,'  then  the 
work  becomes  art  indeed." 

In  the  preface  to  the  third  edition  (1874)  Ruskin 
confesses  that  his  book  had  gained  an  influence,  for 
Englishmen  had  begun  to  mottle  their  manufactory 
chimneys  with  black  and  red,  and  to  adorn  their  banks 
and  drapers'  shops  with  Venetian  tracery,  but  the  chief 
purpose  of  the  writing,  which  was  to  show  the  moral 
corruption  as  cause  of  the  corruption  of  art,  had  been 
altogether  neglected. 

"  As  a  physician  would  .  .  .  rather  hear  that 
his  patient  had  thrown  all  his  medicine  out  of  the 


Il6  JOHN    RUSKIN 

window,  than  that  he  had  sent  word  to  his  apothecary 
to  leave  out  two  of  its  three  ingredients,  so  I  would 
rather,  for  my  own  part,  that  no  architects  had  ever 
condescended  to  adopt  one  of  the  views  suggested  in 
this  book." 

At  the  close  of  Stones  of  Venice  he  complains  once 
more  that  all  readers  praised  the  style  and  none  the 
substance. 

u  If  .  .  .  I  had  told,  as  a  more  egoistic  person 
would,  my  own  impressions,  as  thinking  those,  for- 
sooth, and  not  the  history  of  Venice,  the  most  impor- 
tant business,  ...  a  large  number  of  equally 
egoistic  persons  would  have  instantly  felt  the  sincer- 
ity of  the  selfishness,  clapped  it,  and  stroked  it,  and 
said,  4  That's  me.'  " 

The  truth  he  had  to  tell  he  declares  to  have  been 
"  denied  and  detested." 

Finally,  a  somewhat  whimsical  last  page  is  filled 
with  an  extract  from  his  diary  of  1845,  showing  that 
he  too  could  write  like  a  critic  of  "  chiaroscuro  and 
other  artistic  qualities,"  but  that  he  kept  such  obser- 
vations for  the  furnishing  of  his  own  science  rather 
than  for  presentation  to  the  public.  And  in  the  ap- 
pendix to  Stones  of  Venice  is  an  invaluable  essay  on 
the  Venetian  pictures. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

"  PRE-RAPHAELITISM 


WHEN  the  pictures  of  the  young  "  pre-Raphaelite 
brethren  "  first  appeared  in  the  London  exhibitions, 
the  newspapers  made  loud  complaints.  Of  pictures 
by  Millais  and  Holman  Hunt  at  the  Academy  the 
Times  said  :  "  These  young  artists  have  unfortunately 
become  notorious  by  addicting  themselves  to  an  anti- 
quated style  and  an  affected  simplicity  of  painting. 
.  We  can  extend  no  toleration  to  a  mere 
senile  l  imitation  of  the  cramped  style,  false  perspec- 
tive, and  crude  colour  of  remote  antiquity. 
That  morbid  infatuation  which  sacrifices  truth, 
beauty,  and  genuine  feeling  to  mere  eccentricity  de- 
serves no  quarter  at  the  hands  of  the  public."  Rus- 
kin  then  wrote  to  the  Times  two  letters,  signed  "  The 
Author  of  Modern  Painters,"  protesting  that  the  pic- 
tures in  question  were  not  false  whether  in  feeling  or 
perspective,  that  their  laboriousness  entitled  them  to 
more  than  a  hasty  judgment,  and  that  great  things 
might  be  expected  of  the  painters.  He  blames  them 
for  looking  too  narrowly,  and  he  perceives  a  flowing 

1  The  word  is  "  senile  "  in  early  and  late  editions  of  Ruskin,  but 
it  is  a  strange  word  wherewith  to  rate  young  painters.  The  ad- 
jective you  can  read  with  your  eyes  shut,  to  go  with  "  imitation," 
is  «  servile." 

117 


Il8  JOHN    RUSKIN 

and  an  impulse  in  nature  that  outstrips  such  slow 
labours  as  theirs;  but  his  praises  of  their  execution, 
in  its  kind,  and  of  their  colour,  are  large.  "  I  have 
no  acquaintance  with  any  of  these  artists,  and  very 
imperfect  sympathy  with  them,"  says  the  first  letter; 
the  apology  was  undertaken  for  the  love  of  natural 
truth,  evidently  dear  to  the  new  painters.  The  Times 
letters  were  followed  immediately  by  a  pamphlet. 
The  pre-Raphaelite  brethren,  says  the  preface,  had 
been  assailed  "with  the  most  scurrilous  abuse  which 
I  ever  recollect  seeing  issue  from  the  press  "  (it  must 
be  owned  that  Raskin's  angry  sentence  is  ill-written 
in  three  places);  and  the  contention  that  follows  is 
exceedingly  interesting  for  reasons  that  seem  to  have 
escaped  its  readers.  That  is,  Ruskin  has  always  been 
represented  as  the  champion  of  a  group  of  young 
men  of  talent.  This  he  was,  and  a  generous  one ;  he 
declared  their  work  to  be  the  "  most  earnest  and  com- 
plete "  done  in  Europe  since  the  day  of  Albert  Durer. 
But  the  pamphlet  is  by  no  means,  in  its  essential 
argument,  the  eulogy  of  young  men  of  talent.  It  is 
a  frank  proposal  to  young  men  of  industry  that  they 
should  apply  themselves  modestly  to  painting  pictures 
of  topographic,  historic,  scientific,  or  botanic  interest 
pour  seruir.  Ruskin  is  accused  of  seeing  "genius" 
too  readily ;  but  there  could  hardly  be  a  more  candid 
declaration  (it  was  too  candid  to  be  altogether  under- 
stood) that  genius  was  not  to  be  looked  for.  The 
author  of  Pre-Raphaelitism  says  in  effect  that  what  is 
to  be  demanded  of  a  multitude  of  painters  (who  can 
be  no  more  than  workmen,  and  ought  to  be  good 


"  PRE-RAPHAELITISM  "  I 1 9 

workmen)  is  a  trustworthy  and  useful  record  of  con- 
temporary things  having  an  unpictorial  interest.  He 
says  further  on  : 

"  Many  people  have  found  fault  with  me  for  not 
1  teaching  people  how  to  arrange  masses ' ;  for  not 
'attributing  sufficient  importance  to  composition.' 
Alas  !  I  attribute  far  more  importance  to  it  than  they 
do — so  much  importance  that  I  should  just  as  soon 
think  of  sitting  down  to  teach  a  man  how  to  write  a 
Divina  Commedia  or  King  Lear,  as  how  to  c  compose,' 
in  the  true  sense,  a  single  building  or  picture." 

Such  a  comparison  doubtless  goes  too  far,  or  rather 
goes  wrong,  as  demonstrations  borrowed  from  each 
other  by  the  arts  must  always  do  ;  for  certainly  there 
are  things  to  be  taught  to  a  painter  that  have  no 
counterpart  in  any  things  possible  to  teach  to  a  poet. 
But  I  quote  the  passage  in  sign  of  the  curious  conten- 
tion— it  reappears  in  the  first  Slade  lectures — that  the 
majority  of  painters  would  do  well  to  content  them- 
selves with  pictures  that  are  hardly  pictures.  Noth- 
ing more  humiliating  was  ever  said  of  modern  art;  it 
was  so  humiliating  that  no  one  would  consent  to  un- 
derstand it;  was  indeed  too  humiliating  to  be  just. 

The  pre-Raphaelite  pamphlet  changes,  after  the  in- 
troductory page,  into  a  history  of  the  art  of  Turner. 
Particularly  instructive  here  is  the  history  of  the 
evolution  of  Turner's  whole  art  of  colour,  from  the 
kind  of  colour-stenography  of  the  beginning ;  and 
excellent  also  the  history  of  Turner's  sympathy,  of 
his  ready  admirations,  of  the  help  he  consented  to 
receive  from  weak  painters,  such  as  Claude,  and  re- 


120  JOHN    RUSK.IN 

fused  from  strong  but  more  false  painters,  such  as 
Salvator  Rosa. 

"  Besides,  he  had  never  seen  classical  life,  and 
Claude  was  represented  to  him  as  a  competent  au- 
thority for  it.  But  he  had  seen  mountains  and  tor- 
rents, and  knew  therefore  that  Salvator  could  not  paint 
them." 

In  1800,  facing  the  Continental  landscape  for  him- 
self, Turner  cast  Claude  and  the  rest  away,  once  for 
all,  and  relied  upon  his  eagle  eye,  his  imagination,  and 
his  "gigantic  memory."  Turner,  says  Ruskin,  for- 
got himself,  and  forgot  nothing  else. 

The  Times  letters  of  1851  were  followed  by  a 
letter,  in  1854,  in  praise  of  Mr.  Holman  Hunt's 
"  Light  of  the  World  "  ;  and  in  this  place — although 
it  belongs  to  a  much  later  date — may  also  be  men- 
tioned the  paper  on  u  The  Three  Colours  of  Pre- 
Raphaelitism "  (Nineteenth  Century,  1878),  memo- 
rable for  the  happy  passage  upon  that  picture  which 
corrupt  criticism  used  to  call  the  greatest  in  the  world. 
Ruskin  rehearses  his  former  grave  accusation  of 
Raphael,  that  he  confused  and  quenched  the  "  veraci- 
ties of  the  life  of  Christ  "  ;  and  adds  : 

"  Raphael  .  .  .  after  profoundly  studying  the 
arabesques  of  Pompeii  and  of  the  palace  of  the 
Cjcsars,  beguiled  the  tedium,  and  illustrated  the 
spirituality,  of  the  converse  of  Moses  and  Elias  with 
Christ  concerning  His  decease  which  He  should  ac- 
complish at  Jerusalem,  by  placing  them,  above  the 
Mount  of  Transfiguration,  in  the  attitudes  of  two 
humming-birds  on  the  top  of  a  honeysuckle." 


CHAPTER  IX 
"LECTURES  ON  ARCHITECTURE  AND  PAINTING"  (1853) 

JOHN  RUSKIN'S  career  as  a  lecturer  began  at  Edin- 
burgh with  a  course  of  two  lectures  on  architecture  and 
two  on  painting.  It  was  to  take  him  later  to  the  Slade 
chair  at  Oxford,  to  the  Oxford  Museum,  to  the  Royal 
Institution,  the  London  Institution,  the  South  Kensing- 
ton Museum,  to  Cambridge,  Eton,  Manchester,  Bir- 
mingham, Liverpool,  Kendal,  Bradford,  Dublin,  Tun- 
bridge  Wells,  Woolwich,  and  into  the  lecture  rooms 
of  University  College,  Christ's  Hospital,  the  Lam- 
beth School  of  Art,  St.  Martin's  School  of  Art,  the 
Working  Men's  College,  the  Architectural  Associa- 
tion, the  Society  of  Arts,  the  Society  of  Antiquaries 
— and  the  list  is  not  complete.  This  first  appearance 
on  the  platform  was  made  with  the  utmost  charm  of 
address,  although  the  matter  was  controversial,  and 
controversy  followed.  "  I  come  before  you,"  a  pas- 
sage in  the  second  lecture  avows,  "  professedly  to 
speak  of  things  forgotten  or  things  disputed."  And 
his  opponents  joined  issue  with  him  on  the  importance 
of  architectural  ornament,  on  its  place,  on  the  union 
of  architect  and  sculptor  in  one,  and,  in  general,  on 
the  Gothic  city.  For  it  was  to  the  Gothic  city  that 
Ruskin  intended  to  persuade  his  Modern  Athens.  He 
set  forth  with  a  comparison  of  Edinburgh  with  Verona 
— the  one  city  whereof  the  beauty  lay  without,  and 

121 


122  JOHN    RUSK.IN 

the  other  whereof  it  lay  without  and  within.  To  be 
beautiful,  a  town  must  be  domestically  beautiful,  beau- 
tiful cumulatively  in  its  dwellings,  beautiful  success- 
ively along  its  streets : 

"  The  great  concerted  music  of  the  streets  .  .  . 
when  turret  rises  over  turret,  and  casement  frowns 
beyond  casement,  and  tower  succeeds  to  tower  along 
the  farthest  ridges  of  the  inhabited  hills — this  is  a 
sublimity  of  which  you  can  at  present  form  no  con- 
ception." 

"Neither  the  mind  nor  the  eye,"  he  says  else- 
where, "  will  accept  a  new  college,  or  a  new  hospital, 
or  a  new  institution,  for  a  city  " ;  and  a  fine  church 
in  a  vile  street  is  nothing  but  a  superstition.  There- 
fore he  would  rouse  the  citizens  against  their  Ionic 
and  Corinthian  column,  repeated  without  delight ;  and 
defending  once  again — it  is  central  to  his  teaching — 
the  theory  of  the  certainties  of  beauty,  he  says : 

"  Examine  well  the  channels  of  your  admiration, 
and  you  will  find  that  they  are,  in  verity,  as  un- 
changeable as  the  channels  of  your  heart's  blood." 

Ruskin  recommends  the  pointed  window-opening 
for  its  greater  strength.  The  common  cross  lintel  is 
of  a  form  that  wastes  strength,  when  it  is  strong, 
which,  in  modern  building,  is  not  often.  And  the 
pseudo-Greek  decoration  is  wasted  as  well  as  the 
power,  by  its  position  at  the  top  of  the  building. 
Pediments,  stylobates,  and  architraves  are  dead. 
Fine  Gothic  is  as  various  as  nature's  foliage,  and  this 


"LECTURES  ON  ARCHITECTURE  AND  PAINTING"  123 

Ruskin  illustrates  by  an  exquisite  lesson  on  the  leaves 
of  the  mountain  ash;  a  sculptor  should  not  repeat 
his  sculpture,  as  a  painter  should  not  paint  the  same 
picture.  Moreover,  fine  Gothic  ornament  is  visible ; 
it  is  chiefly  rich  about  the  doors,  it  is  rough  at  a 
height  above  the  eye;  only  in  the  degraded  Gothic 
of  Milan  cathedral  are  the  statues  on  the  roof  cut 
delicately. 

"  Be  assured  that  l  handling '  is  as  great  a  thing  in 
marble  as  in  paint,  and  that  the  power  of  producing  a 
masterly  effect  with  few  touches  is  as  essential  in  an 
architect  as  in  a  draughtsman." 

Thus  he  does  not  urge  upon  the  modern  citizen  a 
costly  manner  of  architecture,  but  resigns  himself, 
since  he  must,  to  the  poverty  or  penury  of  a  society 
and  age  strangely  given  to  boast  of  riches.  The 
Gothic  of  dwellings  is  one  with  the  Gothic  church ; 
the  apse  of  Amiens  is  "  but  a  series  of  windows  sur- 
mounted by  pure  gables  of  open  work  "  ;  the  spire, 
the  pointed  tower  of  South  Switzerland,  are  but  the 
roof,  which  ought  always  to  be  very  visible,  made  yet 
more  visible. 

"  Have  not  those  words  Pinnacle,  Turret,  Belfry, 
Spire,    Tower,    a    pleasant    sound   in   all  your  ears  ? 
Do   you  think  there  is  any  group  of  words 
which   would   thus  interest  you  when  the  things  ex- 
pressed by  them  are  uninteresting  ?  " 

Some  expense  of  controversy  seems  to  be  hardly 
worth  while  in  Ruskin's  contention  that  "  ornamenta- 


124  JOHN    RUSKIN 

tion  is  the  principal  part  of  architecture  considered  as 
a  fine  art."  For  when  the  word  "principal"  is 
thoroughly  explained,  nothing  is  left  in  the  proposi- 
tion but  what  most  architects  would  be  willing  to 
accept. 

"  A  Gothic  cathedral  is  properly  to  be  defined  as  a 
piece  of  the  most  magnificent  associative  sculpture 
arranged  on  the  noblest  principles  of  building." 

But  this  principle  is  pushed  far  by  Ruskin  when  he 
adds  that  architecture  may  be  defined  as  "  the  an  of 
designing  sculpture  for  a  particular  place  and  placing 
it  there  on  the  best  principles  of  building."  Archi- 
tecture, said  his  opponents,  is  "par  excellence  the  art 
of  proportion."  So,  rejoined  Ruskin,  is  all  art  in  the 
world,  and  none  par  excellence ;  all  art  depends  from 
the  beginning  upon  proportion  for  its  existence,  and 
Gothic  has  more  proportions  than  other  architecture, 
having  a  greater  number  of  members. 

The  final  lesson  of  the  lectures  is  that  Gothic  with 
its  liberal  variety  and  interest  "  implies  the  liberty  of 
the  workman."  Such  a  plea  Ruskin  thought  would 
have  won  some  reply  from  the  modern  heart ;  but  it 
elicited  none. 

The  two  lectures  on  painting  deal,  the  one  with 
Turner  and  Claude  (ground  trodden  in  Modern 
Painters),  and  the  other  with  the  reforms  attempted  by 
the  English  pre-Raphaelites. 


CHAPTER  X 
"ELEMENTS  OF  DRAWING"  (1857) 

THE  three  Letters  to  Beginners  printed  with  this 
title  require  of  the  learner  a  simple  discipleship  and 
confidence — not  blind,  for  everything  is  shown  him  in 
time,  but  expectant,  and  with  good  reasons  for  being 
intellectually  predisposed  to  receive  this  instruction 
rather  than  another.  It  would  be  well  to  warn  a 
student  in  Ruskin's  drawing-class  to  look  well  to 
those  reasons  and  to  be  sure  they  are  good ;  for  the 
teaching  is  intolerant  of  mixture  with  any  other 
methods.  That  teaching,  merely  as  it  stands  in  this 
small  book — lost  in  the  astonishing  quantity  of  its 
author's  labours  of  the  mind — proves  an  entire  system 
of  thought  and  practice,  justified  by  pure  principle 
and  by  the  analysis  of  the  work  of  masters.  But  the 
modern  reader  may  wonder  whether,  a  painter  having 
been  duly  born,  but  having  yet  to  be  made,  he  would 
have  a  chance  of  being  well  made  under  the  guidance 
of  this  book.  Let  no  one  think  that  if  there  were 
failure  it  would  be  the  consequence  of  too  literary  a 
quality  of  instruction,  and  of  the  influence  of  a  literary 
mind  ;  Ruskin's  work  in  these  letters  is  artist's  work, 
designer's  and  painter's  work ;  Ruskin  is  more  sure  of 
the  world  of  bodily  vision,  more  obedient  to  all  its 
limits — in  a  word,  more  technical — than  an  ordinary 
drawing-master  in  his  class  would  know  how  to  be. 

125 


126  JOHN    RUSK.IN 

Ruskin  teaches  his  students  to  look  at  nature  with 
simple  eyes,  to  trust  sight  as  the  sense  of  the  painter, 
a  sense  to  be  kept  untampered  with,  unprompted,  and 
unhampered.  In  a  book  on  Velasquez,  published  in 
the  winter  of  Ruskin's  death,  by  a  critic  who  perhaps 
would  not  have  consented  to  quote  a  precept  from 
Ruskin,  nearly  a  page  is  devoted  to  the  record  of  what 
the  writer  had  been  fortunate  enough  to  hear  said  by 
a  French  painter ;  and  this  proves  to  be  but  a  long 
statement  of  what  Ruskin  taught  in  a  single  phrase 
when  he  bade  the  student  to  seek  to  recover  the  in- 
nocence of  the  eye.  And  yet  in  spite  of  admirable 
theory,  the  frequently  recurring  praises  of  William 
Hunt,  the  water-colour  painter  of  fruit,  add  to  the 
reader's  uneasiness.  On  the  other  hand,  the  student 
is  taught  to  perceive  the  greatness  of  the  greatest 
masters : 

"  You  may  look,  with  trust  in  their  being  always 
right,  at  Titian,  Veronese,  Tintoret,  Giorgione,  John 
Bellini,  and  Velasquez.  You  may  look  with  admira- 
tion, admitting,  however,  question  of  right  and  wrong, 
at  Van  Eyck,  Holbein,  Perugino,  Francia,  Angelico, 
Leonardo  da  Vinci,  Correggio,  Vandyck,  Rembrandt, 
Reynolds,  Gainsborough,  Turner,  and  the  modern  pre- 
Raphaelites." 

Michelangiolo,  Raphael,  and  Rubens  are  great 
masters,  but  not  masters  for  students;  Murillo,  Sal- 
vator,  Claude,  Gaspar  Poussin,  Teniers,  are  danger- 
ous. 

"You  may  look,  however,  for  examples  of  evil, 
with  safe  universality  of  reprobation,  being  sure  that 


"ELEMENTS  OF  DRAWING"  127 

everything  you  see  is  bad,  at  Domenichino,  the  Ca- 
racci,  Bronzino,  and  the  figure  pieces  of  Salvator." 

In  this  lesson,  the  teacher  disclaims  any  intention 
of  placing  his  great  ones  higher  or  lower  than  one 
another;  it  is  a  lesson  for  those  who  go  to  the  gal- 
leries to  learn  to  work  and  not  only  to  learn  to  judge. 
Let  us  contrast  with  this  another  lesson  (this  one 
from  the  appendix)  on  things  to  be  studied,  whereby 
the  young  artist  is  directed  to  read  the  poets — Scott, 
Wordsworth,  Keats,  Crabbe,  Tennyson,  the  two 
Brownings,  Lowell,  Longfellow,  and  Coventry  Pat- 
more  alone  amongst  the  moderns.  "  Cast  Coleridge 
at  once  aside,  as  sickly  and  useless ;  and  Shelley  as 
shallow  and  verbose."  Byron  is  but  withheld  for  a 
time,  with  praise  of  his  "  magnificence."  And  we 
have  Patmore — the  poet  of  spiritual  passion  and  lofty 
distinction — praised  for  "  quiet  modern  domestic  feel- 
ing "  and  a  "  finished  piece  of  writing."  And  Shelley 
"  verbose  " — Adonais  verbose,  and  not  Endymion  !  All 
the  living  poets  whom  Ruskin  praised — Browning, 
Rossetti,  and  Patmore  amongst  them — had  to  endure 
to  be  praised  side  by  side  with  Longfellow,  and  they 
did  not  love  the  association.  But  in  all  this  strange 
sentence  nothing  is  less  intelligible  than  the  word 
which  commends  to  the  young  student — urged  in  the 
same  breath  to  restrict  himself  to  what  is  generous, 
reverend,  and  peaceful — all  the  writings  of  Robert 
Browning.  The  student  is  warned  to  refrain  from 
even  noble,  even  pure,  satire,  from  coldness,  and  from 
a  sneer;  and  is  yet  sent  to  a  poet  who  gave  his  imag- 


128  JOHN    RUSK.IN 

ination  to  the  invention  of  infernal  hate  in  the 
Spanish  Cloister,  and  of  the  explanations  of  Mr.  Sludge 
and  Bishop  Blougram,  busily,  indefatigably  squalid 
and  ignoble,  and  delighting  in  derision.  This  appen- 
dix must  have  been  written  in  a  perverse  mood ;  but 
in  the  text  what  exquisite  lessons  of  proportion,  and 
of  colour  !  For  instance,  "The  eye  should  feel  white 
as  a  space  of  strange,  heavenly  paleness  in  the  midst 
of  the  feeling  of  colours,"  and  "  You  must  make  the 
black  conspicuous,  the  black  should  look  strange  "  ; 
what  a  sense  of  the  growth  of  trees,  of  flowers  with 
their  delicate  inflections  of  law,  their  vital  symmetry 
and  asymmetry,  and  their  progress,  their  relation,  from 
stem  to  limit  of  leaf;  what  a  steady — nay  eternal — 
vision  of  movement — "the  animal  in  its  motion,  the 
tree  in  its  growth,  the  cloud  in  its  course,  the  moun- 
tain in  its  wearing  away !  "  And  in  the  lesson  on 
colour  occurs  the  humour  that  might  be  a  woman's 
or  a  child's,  if  woman  or  child  could  ever  be  womanly 
or  childish  enough  to  conceive  it — it  is  in  a  fine  pas- 
sage on  the  economy  of  nature :  "  Sometimes  I  have 
really  thought  her  miserliness  intolerable ;  in  a  gen- 
tian, for  instance,  the  way  she  economises  her  ultra- 
marine down  in  the  bell  is  a  little  too  bad."  With 
Elements  of  Drawing  should  be  named  Elements  of 
Perspective,  a  series  of  lessons  intended  to  be  read  in 
connection  with  the  first  three  books  of  Euclid,  signs 
of  yet  another  intellect — the  mathematical — added  to 
this  wonderful  spirit.  The  drawings  that  accompany 
Elements  of  Drawing  arc  of  great  beauty. 


CHAPTER  XI 
"THE  POLITICAL  ECONOMY  OF  ART"  (1857) 

THIS  little  volume  holds  the  substance  of  two 
lectures  given  at  Manchester.  The  lecturer  exercises 
here  the  pleasant  art  of  stimulating  his  hearers  by  a 
paradox,  and  of  following  the  phrase  of  surprise  by  an 
irrefutable  exposition.  His  theme  is  the  right  ex- 
penditure of  public  money.  He,  like  the  other  econ- 
omists, has  to  find  room,  in  the  national  dispensa- 
tions, for  expense  upon  the  arts,  and  in  some  sort 
the  luxuries,  of  life.  Christian  and  ascetic,  he  has  to 
consent  to  this  use  of  the  fruits  of  the  labours  of  the 
poor,  as  the  severe  but  not  ascetic  "  Manchester " 
economist  also  must  needs  do.  Mill,  who  insists  that 
all  unproductive  consumption  is  so  much  loss  and  de- 
struction, evidently  arranges  for,  and  tolerates,  so 
much  loss  and  destruction  in  a  certain  cause ;  he 
allows  the  artist  to  destroy  what  he  consumes.  With 
such  permission  a  purely  scientific  writer  has  nothing 
to  do.  Like  a  writer  on  arithmetic,  a  writer  on  polit- 
ical economy  proper  states  these  laws,  those  causes, 
and  yonder  consequences,  and  is  not  called  upon,  as 
an  economist,  to  approve  or  disapprove  of  an  act  that 
would  disregard  the  purely  economic  results.  (I  shall 
have  to  urge  the  same  point  in  regard  to  the  later 
work —  Unto  this  Last.}  And  this  is  why  it  is  irritat- 
ing to  hear  men  speak  of  doing  such  or  such  a  thing 

129 


130  JOHN    RUSKIN 

"  in  spite  of  the  political  economists,"  or  "  notwith- 
standing the  professors  of  the  dismal  science."  The 
calculators  of  a  nation's  wealth  are  simply  to  state 
their  calculations ;  that  done,  they  might  be  the  first 
to  cherish  ethical,  or  political,  or  human  reasons  why 
loss  and  gain  should  in  such  or  such  a  case  be  disre- 
garded ;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  they  might  hold  it  to 
be  wiser  to  disregard  the  results  in  loss  and  gain  as 
little  as  possible.  But  in  either  case  they  would  cease 
for  the  time  to  speak  purely  as  economists  or  calcula- 
tors. Ruskin,  needless  to  say,  unites  the  two  func- 
tions, as  indeed  almost  all  other  writers  have  done. 
He  thinks  precisely,  and  having  "  done  the  sum,"  he 
passes  to  the  other  function,  and  does  the  ethical  work 
for  which  his  calculation-has  given  him  material.  In 
these  two  lectures  he  plans  some  order  in  that  strictly 
unproductive  expenditure  without  which  civilisation 
could  hardly  endure.  The  theme  of  this  book  is 
righteous  spending,  while  the  theme  of  Time  and  Tide 
is  chiefly  righteous  sparing ;  and  he  has  much  to  say 
here  of  the  honour  and  the  power  of  riches  and  the 
disgrace  (let  us  say  the  disgrazia  in  the  Italian  sense) 
of  poverty,  while  in  Fan  Clavigera  he  gives  a  solemn 
personal  assurance — solemn  and  personal  even  for 
him — that  for  the  rich  man  there  is  no  safety  unless 
he  shall  "  piously  and  prudently  "  dispose  himself  to 
become  poor.  But  the  poverty  he  deplores  is  mani- 
festly the  ignorant  and  forsaken  poverty  that  no  man 
ought  to  endure ;  the  poverty  for  the  love  whereof  a 
man  of  heart  despoils  himself  is  the  poverty  of  sim- 
plicity ;  and  even  the  poverty  of  the  simple  is  to  be 


"THE  POLITICAL  ECONOMY  OF  ART"        131 

sought  chiefly  in  order  that  there  should  be  none,  or 
less,  of  the  poverty  of  the  forsaken.  In  this  very 
lecture  on  the  administration  of  wealth  for  the  foster- 
ing of  art,  the  nation  and  the  man  are  warned  alike 
that  the  spending  which  would  be  lawful  in  a  society 
where  none  were  starving  for  lack  of  work  ought  to 
be  foregone  or  deferred  there  where  children  have  no 
bread. 

The  nation,  says  in  effect  the  lecturer  on  "  The 
Political  Economy  of  Art,"  is  as  free  and  as  bound, 
as  responsible  and  as  dependent  in  its  inter-rela- 
tion, as  a  household,  and  a  nation  is  governable  like 
a  farm.  If  any  one  shall  say  that  the  similitude  is 
too  domestic,  the  reply  shall  be  that  it  is  not  domestic 
enough. 

"  The  real  type  of  a  well-organised  nation  must  be 
presented,  not  by  a  farm  cultivated  by  servants  who 
wrought  for  hire,  .  .  .  but  by  a  farm  in  which 
the  master  was  a  father,  and  in  which  all  the  servants 
were  sons." 

With  a  peculiar  humour,  Ruskin  begs  his  hearers  not 
to  be  alarmed  at  the  menacing  word  "  fraternity." 
The  French  who  used  it,  he  declares  (for  the  reas- 
suring of  a  Manchester  audience)  to  have  gone  wrong 
in  their  experiment.  But  the  cause  of  their  error  he 
states  without  irony.  It  was  that  they  refused  to  ac- 
knowledge that  fraternity  implied  a  paternity.  The 
world,  nevertheless,  does  not  utter  the  word  paternal 
without  burlesque — "  a  paternal  government  " — nor 
the  word  fraternal  without  defiance.  It  does  not 


132  JOHN    RUSKIN 

chance  that  paternity  is  spoken  of  threateningly  or 
fraternity  with  irony ;  but  this  might  have  been  the 
humour  of  the  commonwealth,  instead  of  the  other. 
Obviously,  what  Ruskin  teaches  in  the  political  part 
of  this  lecture  is  the  necessity  of  authority  and — once 
the  arbitrary  tyrannies  of  primitive  society  are  done 
away,  which  is  early  in  all  civilisations — the  nullity 
of  the  "  liberty  "  that  men  have  died  for  with  alacrity 
age  by  age. 

Wealth  ought  not  to  be  acquired  by  covetousness, 
nor  distributed  by  prodigality,  nor  hoarded  by  avarice, 
nor  increased  by  competition,  nor  destroyed  by  luxury. 
To  none  of  these  forms  of  egoism  should  be  aban- 
doned the  important  economy  of  money.  Ruskin  in- 
sists upon  the  special  responsibility  of  man  for  that 
talent — not  the  talent  of  wit  or  intellect  or  influence 
with  the  bishops,  but  the  talent  of  money  literally. 
In  "  The  Political  Economy  of  Art "  the  reader 
should  note  the  fine  page  upon  the  destruction  of 
wealth,  as  well  as  of  art,  that  is  wrought  not  by  the 
tooth  of  time : 

u  Fancy  what  Europe  would  be  now,  if  the  delicate 
statues  and  temples  of  the  Greeks, — if  the  broad 
roads  and  massy  walls  of  the  Romans, — if  the  noble 
and  pathetic  architecture  of  the  middle  ages  had  not 
been  ground  to  the  dust  by  mere  human  rage." 


CHAPTER  XII 
"THE  TWO  PATHS"  (1859) 

THE  principal  teaching  of  this  volume,  ratified  by 
a  preface  in  1878,  is  summed  up  thus : 

"The  law  which  it  has  been  my  effort  chiefly  to  il- 
lustrate is  the  dependence  of  all  noble  design,  in  any 
kind,  on  the  sculpture  or  painting  of  Organic  Form. 
This  is  the  vital  law :  lying  at  the  root  of  all  that  I 
have  ever  tried  to  teach  respecting  architecture  or 
any  other  art.  It  is  also  the  law  most  generally  dis- 
allowed." 

It  is  possible  that  to  this  book  was  due  much  of  the 
impatience  and  anger  spent,  the  day  before  yesterday, 
upon  Ruskin's  art-theory.  By  the  day  before  yester- 
day I  mean  the  time  of  a  flow  that  has  already  been 
succeeded  by  some  ebbing  movement,  and,  in  this 
case,  the  time  between  the  popularising  in  England 
of  the  "art  for  art"  of  the  French,  about  1880,  and 
the  day  when  the  last  journalist  flagged  in  the  last 
repetition  thereof — and  it  took  him  nearly  twenty 
years.  In  October  1899  a  fugitive  writer  in  a  con- 
spicuous art-review  spoke  of  "  the  unutterable  bosh 
written  by  Ruskin  about  art "  ;  and  the  inferior  clown- 
ishness  of  that  reviewer  is  only  the  latest  mimicking 
of  the  higher  clownishness  of  criticism  a  little  earlier 
written. 

133 


134  JOHN    RUSKIN 

The  teaching  of  The  Two  Paths  has  been  thought 
out  by  its  author  in  the  very  interior  intricacies.  It 
is  dogmatic  in  proportion  to  the  difficulty  which  he 
certainly  knows  he  found  in  that  inner  place,  but 
which  he  never  explicitly  confesses.  Two  paths 
there  are,  he  teaches,  one  leading  to  destruction  and 
the  other  to  life.  The  one  is  that  of  the  artist  who 
loves  his  own  skill  and  seeks  first  his  pleasure  in 
beauty,  and  the  other  is  that  of  him  who  loves  nature 
and  studies  the  beauty  of  her  truth  and  never  lets  go 
his  grasp  upon  the  laws  of  natural  living  form.  Both 
artists  may — nay,  must — draw  conventionally  at 
times,  and  at  times  must  design  the  mosaic  patterns, 
or  the  diaper  patterns,  that  ultimately  resemble  each 
other,  assuredly,  from  whichever  path  they  are  ap- 
proached. It  seems  that  Ruskin  insists  upon  a  differ- 
ence, even  in  this  ultimate  point.  And  yet  the  pret- 
tiest and  most  ingenious  oriental  diaper  of  fret-work 
(which  he  denounces)  has  a  suggestion  in  natural 
curve,  or  even  in  the  curve  of  organic  life,  as  the 
Lombard  ornament  (which  he  approves)  has  a  sugges- 
tion in  natural  crystallisation — that  is,  in  something 
other  than  organic  form  properly  so-called.  A  similar 
difficulty  occurs  to  the  reader  in  regard  to  all  "  con- 
vention," however  slight. 

This,  however,  is  a  difficulty,  as  it  were,  at  the  end 
of  the  argument.  At  its  head  Ruskin  has  placed  a 
difficulty  that  meets  the  reader  with  a  very  menace. 
The  title  of  this  first  lecture  is  "  The  Deteriorative 
Powers  of  Conventional  Art  over  Nations."  The 
adjective  u  conventional  "  seems  to  mitigate  the  prcdi- 


"THE  TWO  PATHS"  135 

cate  of  this  lecture ;  but  there  is  no  such  mitigation 
in  the  text,  which  declares  roundly  that  from  the  mo- 
ment when  a  perfect  picture  is  painted  or  a  perfect 
statue  wrought  within  a  State,  that  State  begins  to 
derogate.  Not  only  is  the  word  "  conventional " 
omitted,  but  the  word  "  perfect "  seems  to  bar  it  out. 
Then  comes  the  tremendous  contrast  with  which 
Ruskin  commands  his  readers  and  compels  them  to 
attend  to  what  shall  follow.  Thus  it  stands  :  India 
(then  lately  guilty  of  the  Mutiny  and  accused  of  more 
evil  than  she  had  committed)  is  a  nation  possessed  of 
exquisite  art,  but  given  over  to  every  infernal  passion 
— cruelty  and  the  rest.  Scotland  is  a  nation  full  of 
the  dignity  of  virtue  and  possessed  of  no  art  whatever 
except  that  of  arranging  lines  of  colour  at  right  angles 
in  the  plaid.  Splendid  are  these  pages,  with  their 
nobility  and  temperance  of  diction  in  the  statement 
of  what  is  most  certainly  a  disastrous  exaggeration. 
They  close  with  the  assertion  of  a  brief  and  absolute 
opposition  :  "  Out  of  the  peat  cottage  come  faith, 
courage,  self-sacrifice,  purity,  and  piety  .  .  . ;  out 
of  the  ivory  palace  come  treachery,  cruelty,  cowardice, 
idolatry,  bestiality."  Who,  nevertheless,  in  calmer 
thought  dare  ratify  such  a  sentence  ?  "  Piety  " — alas  ! 
"  Purity  " — alas,  alas  !  The  judgment  on  the  Hindoo 
calls  for  more  indignant  groans.  To  pass  to  the  art, 
however :  Indian  art  "  never  represents  a  natural  fact," 
says  Ruskin ;  but  (putting  aside  the  certain  truth  that 
it  is  suggested  by  natural  fact,  and  that  the  European 
"  conventional "  art  is  no  more  than  suggested  by 
natural  fact)  what  becomes  of  his  contention  that 


136  JOHN    RUSKIN 

Indian  art  is  therefore  a  portent  of  degradation,  in 
view  of  the  statement  on  a. previous  page  that  the 
perfect  statue  and  the  perfect  picture  were  also,  in 
Rome  and  Venice,  portents  of  degradation  ?  Surely 
the  perfect  statue  represents  a  natural  fact.  And 
at  the  end  of  a  close  and  urgent  argument,  the 
reader  asks  where,  then,  is  Scotland  in  all  this  ? 
The  Scot  of  the  cottage  does  not  produce  the  art 
taught  by  organic  form  which  is  so  nobly  described  as 
righteous — he  produces  no  art;  or  stay,  he  produces 
the  plaid  just  mentioned,  which  is  much,  much  less 
organic  than  anything  in  the  whole  range  of  Indian 
design.  The  curve  of  an  Indian  shawl-pattern  has  a 
natural  inspiration ;  what  life — let  alone  the  noble 
animal  and  human  life  which  Ruskin  declares  to  be 
the  highest  inspiration  of  art — but  what  life,  however 
humble,  what  life  of  any  degree  of  humbleness,  is 
represented,  much  less  imitated,  by  the  plaid  ?  To 
despise  life  is,  Ruskin  teaches,  the  first  and  ultimate 
sin.  Well,  then,  asks  his  reader,  are  they  to  be  held 
innocent  of  that  sin  who,  having  before  their  eyes 
the  living  proportion  of  common  plant-growth,  and 
the  form  of  rock,  less  vital  yet  erect  in  all  the  gravity 
of  natural  law,  yet  turned  their  eyes  away  and  ruled 
the  lines  of  their  tartan;  who,  having  in  sight  the 
soft  gloomy  purple  of  their  heather  and  the  soft  brown 
of  their  streams,  chose  to  put  that  yellow  line  between 
that  blue  and  that  red — the  hardest  colours  of  all 
men's  invention  ?  I  want  such  a  phrase  as  Ruskin 
alone  could  give  me  to  denounce  the  hatred  of  nature 
and  the  contempt  of  life  which  the  plaid  could  be 


"  THE    TWO    PATHS  "  137 

made  to  prove.  And  see  what  significance  he  attaches 
to  the  mere  straying  from  nature  in  the  Hindoo ! 
"  He  draws  no  plant,  but  only  a  spiral."  But  the 
Scot  loved  the  plant  not  enough  to  draw  even  a 
spiral ;  he  ruled  straight  lines. 

If  I  have  treated  this  book  with  controversy,  it  was 
impossible  to  do  otherwise.  But  out  of  its  treasures 
of  wisdom  take  the  page  in  praise  of  Titian  which 
ends  with  the  passage  :  "  Nobody  cares  much  at  heart 
about  Titian ;  only  there  is  a  strange  undercurrent  of 
everlasting  murmur  about  his  name,  which  means  the 
deep  consent  of  all  great  men  that  he  is  greater  than 
they,"  and  so  on  to  the  end.  For  wit  take  this,  from 
the  important  section  of  the  lecture  on  "  Modern 
Manufacture  and  Design,"  that  partly  condemns  the 
usual  teaching  of  symmetry  : 

"  If  you  learn  to  draw  a  leaf  well,  you  are  taught 
.  to  turn  it  the  other  way,  opposite  to  itself; 
and  the  two  leaves  set  opposite  ways  are  called  *  a 
design.'  .  .  .  But  if  once  you  learn  to  draw  the 
human  figure,  you  will  find  that  knocking  two  men's 
heads  together  does  not  necessarily  constitute  a  good 
design." 

The  incident  (in  the  same  lecture)  of  the  sporting 
handkerchief  is  full  of  signs  of  charming  wit.  The 
reader  must  be  referred  to  the  illustration,  but  let  him 
be  assured  that  Ruskin  had  the  best  of  it  in  his  con- 
troversy with  his  friend.  His  friend  proved  to  him 
that  series,  symmetry,  and  contrast  were  the  material 
of  design,  but  used  them  so  cleverly  that  Ruskin  could 


138  JOHN    RUSKIN 

show  him  by  his  own  work  how  such  use  could  not 
be  taught,  measured,  or  ruled ;  and,  moreover,  used 
them  with  so  little  beauty  that  Ruskin  was  able  to 
reply  to  him  that  not  mere  symmetry,  but  lovely 
symmetry,  was  proper  to  art.  For  felicity  of  word 
read  what  follows : 


"  Outside  the  town  I  came  upon  an  old  English 
cottage,  or  mansion,  I  hardly  know  which  to  call  it, 
set  close  under  the  hill,  and  beside  the  river,  .  .  . 
with  mullioned  windows  and  a  low  arched  porch  ; 
round  which,  in  the  little  triangular  garden,  one  can 
imagine  the  family  as  they  used  to  sit  in  old  summer 
times,  the  ripple  of  the  river  heard  faintly  through  the 
sweet-briar  hedge,  and  the  sheep  on  the  far-off  wolds 
shining  in  the  evening  sunlight.  There,  uninhabited 
for  many  and  many  a  year,  it  had  been  left  in  unre- 
garded havoc  of  ruin ;  the  garden-gate  still  swung 
loose  to  its  latch  ;  the  garden,  blighted  utterly  into  a 
field  of  ashes,  not  even  a  weed  taking  root  there ;  the 
roof  torn,  .  .  .  the  shutters  hanging  about  the 
windows  in  rags  of  rotten  weed ;  before  its  gate,  the 
stream  which  had  gladdened  it  now  soaking  slowly 
by,  black  as  ebony,  and  thick  with  curdling  scum ; 
the  bank  above  it  trodden  into  unctuous,  sooty  slime ; 
far  in  front  of  it,  between  it  and  the  old  hills,  the 
furnaces  of  the  city  foaming  forth  perpetual  plague 
of  sulphurous  darkness  ;  the  volumes  of  their  storm 
clouds  coiling  low  over  a  waste  of  grassless  fields." 

That  is  the  circumstance  of  the  designer  at  Rochdale  ; 
and  in  such  conditions  fine  design  is  impossible.  This, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  the  circumstance  of  the  great 
designer  at  Pisa : 


"THE  TWO  PATHS"  139 

"  On  each  side  of  a  bright  river  he  saw  rise  a  line 
of  brighter  palaces,  arched  and  pillared,  and  inlaid  with 
deep  red  porphyry,  and  with  serpentine ;  along  the 
quays,  before  their  gates,  were  riding  troops  of  knights, 
noble  in  face  and  form,  dazzling  in  crest  and  shield ; 
horse  and  man  one  labyrinth  of  quaint  colour  and 
gleaming  light — the  purple,  and  silver,  and  scarlet 
fringes  flowing  over  the  strong  limbs  and  clashing 
mail  like  sea-waves  over  rocks  at  sunset.  Opening 
on  each  side  from  the  river  were  gardens,  courts,  and 
cloisters ;  long  successions  of  white  pillars  among 
wreaths  of  vine ;  leaping  of  fountains  through  buds 
of  pomegranate  and  orange  ;  and  still  along  the  gar- 
den-paths, and  under  and  through  the  crimson  of  the 
pomegranate  shadows,  moving  slowly,  groups  of  the 
fairest  women  that  Italy  ever  saw — fairest,  because 
purest  and  thoughtfullest ;  trained  in  all  high  knowledge, 
as  in  all  courteous  art — in  dance,  in  song,  in  sweet 
wit,  in  lofty  learning,  in  loftier  courage,  in  loftiest  love 
— able  alike  to  cheer,  to  enchant  or  save,  the  souls 
of  men.  Above  all  this  scenery  of  perfect  human  life, 
rose  dome  and  bell-tower,  burning  with  white  alabaster 
and  gold  ;  beyond  dome  and  bell-tower  the  slopes  of 
mighty  hills,  hoary  with  olive  ;  far  in  the  north,  above 
a  purple  sea  of  peaks  of  solemn  Apennine,  the  clear, 
sharp-cloven  Carrara  mountains  sent  up  their  steadfast 
flowers  of  marble  summit  into  amber  sky ;  the  great 
sea  itself,  scorching  with  expanse  of  light,  stretching 
from  their  feet  to  the  Gorgonian  Isles  ;  and  over  all 
these,  ever  present,  near  or  far — seen  through  the  leaves 
of  vine,  or  imaged  with  all  its  march  of  clouds  in  the 
Arno's  stream,  or  set  with  its  depth  of  blue  close  against 
the  golden  hair  and  burning  cheek  of  lady  or  knight — 
that  untroubled  and  sacred  sky,  which  was  to  all  men, 
in  those  days  of  innocent  faith  indeed  the  unquestioned 
abode  of  spirits,  as  the  earth  was  of  men,  ...  a 
heaven  in  which  every  cloud  that  passed  was  literally 


140  JOHN    RUSKIN 

the  chariot  of  an  angel,  and  every  ray  of  its  Evening 
and  Morning  streamed  from  the  throne  of  God." 

Over-rich,  even  for  its  purpose,  is  a  phrase  now  and 
then  ;  but  that  sentence,  "  close  against  the  golden 
hair  and  burning  cheek  .  .  .  the  untroubled  and 
sacred  sky,"  is  purely  beautiful.  As  to  the  signifi- 
cance of  this  contrast  (for  controversy  must  have  it 
again),  how  are  we  to  take  it  ?  Here  is  Rochdale 
declared  unable  to  design  beautifully  because  of  its 
internal  and  surrounding  hideousness;  India  able  to 
design  beautifully,  with  vice,  in  the  midst  of  beauty  ; 
Pisa  able  to  design  beautifully  in  the  midst  of  beauty, 
with  virtue,  according  to  this  golden  picture  ;  Scot- 
land unable  to  design  beautifully,  with  virtue,  in  the 
midst  of  beauty.  What  is  the  lesson,  finally  ?  And 
besides  this  general  doubt  as  to  what  these  several 
things  have  to  prove  to  us,  there  is  also  a  local 
question.  I  never  stand  under  that  untroubled  and 
sacred  sky  but  with  a  remembrance  of  a  tower,  long 
fallen,  that  filled  a  place  in  the  sunny  blue  aloft. 
Many  a  space  of  the  earth  has  been  a  site  of  the 
suffering  of  man ;  but  here  is  a  space  of  the  very  sky 
that  has  been  a  site  of  human  wrongs  intolerable. 
Above,  in  that  delicate  air,  was  the  upper  chamber 
of  the  Tower  of  Famine ;  high  in  that  now  vacant 
and  serene  space  sounded  the  voice  of  Ugolino  and 
his  sons.  Earth  has  every  where  her  graves ;  but  no 
other  sky  than  the  Pisan  sky  holds  such  a  place  as 
this. 

The  world — nature — is  full  of  unanswerable  ques- 


"THE  TWO  PATHS"  141 

tions.  It  was  a  courageous  enterprise  to  answer  one 
of  them  in  this  book — a  great  enterprise,  a  great  de- 
feat. 

To  small  minds,  and  to  the  vulgar,  the  desire  to 
reply  to  those  perpetual  questions  is  a  matter  of  daily 
habit.  They  have  no  doubt  as  to  two  paths,  or  as 
to  the  destination  of  each,  or  the  cause  of  its  inclin- 
ing. But  here,  for  once,  is  a  great  mind  condemning 
itself  to  the  disaster  of  judgment  and  decision,  in  its 
divine  good  faith.  It  is  hardly  credible  that  the  in- 
tellectual martyrdom  of  the  enterprise  of  writing  The 
Two  Paths  should  have  been  hailed  with  the  laughter 
of  the  untroubled.  So,  nevertheless,  it  has  been. 

Tragedy  is  not,  says  Hegel,  in  the  conflict  of  right 
with  wrong,  but  in  the  conflict  of  right  with  right. 
Ruskin  was  nobly  reluctant  to  confess  such  a  strife, 
or  to  be  the  spectator  of  such  a  battle.  Hence  he 
must  declare  two  paths.  But  his  own  labour  of  the 
mind,  his  book,  is,  in  the  sense  of  Hegel,  tragic. 

For  a  far  better  quality  of  splendid  English  than 
the  descriptive  passage  above  quoted,  I  would  cite 
this  from  the  lecture  that  urges  upon  architects  their 
great  vocation  as  sculptors  : 

u  Is  there  anything  within  range  of  sight,  or  con- 
ception, which  may  not  be  of  use  to  you  ?  . 
Whatever  may  be  conceived  of  Divine,  or  beheld  of 
Human,  may  be  dared  or  adopted  by  you ;  through- 
out the  kingdom  of  animal  life,  no  creature  is  so  vast, 
or  so  minute,  that  you  cannot  deal  with  it,  or  bring  it 
into  service  ;  the  lion  and  the  crocodile  will  couch 
about  your  shafts  j  the  moth  and'  bee  will  sun  them- 


142  JOHN    RUSKIN 

selves  upon  your  flowers;  for  you,  the  fawn  will  leap ; 
for  you,  the  snail  will  be  slow  ;  for  you,  the  dove 
smooth  her  bosom,  and  the  hawk  spread  her  wings 
towards  the  south.  All  the  wide  world  of  vegetation 
blooms  and  bends  for  you  ;  the  leaves  tremble  that 
you  may  bid  them  be  still  under  the  marble  snow ;  the 
thorn  and  the  thistle,  which  the  earth  casts  forth  as 
evil,  are  to  you  the  kindliest  servants;  no  dying  petal, 
nor  drooping  tendril,  is  so  feeble  as  to  have  no  help 
for  you ;  no  robed  pride  of  blossom  so  kingly,  but  it 
will  lay  aside  its  purple  to  receive  at  your  hands  its 
pale  immortality." 

Again,  Ruskin  compares  the  interest  of  the  geolo- 
gist, of  the  naturalist,  with  that  of  the  sculptor,  in 
the  things  they  study.  "You  must  get  the  storm- 
spirit  into  your  eagles,  and  the  lordliness  into  your 
lions."  And  again  he  shows  the  forms  of  lifeless 
things — the  all  but  invisible  shells  that  shall  lend  their 
shapes  to  the  starred  traceries  of  a  cathedral  roof,  the 
torn  cable  that  can  twine  into  a  perfect  moulding : 
"  You  who  can  crown  the  mountain  with  its  fortress, 
and  the  city  with  its  towers,  are  thus  able  also  to  give 
beauty  to  ashes  and  worthiness  to  dust."  He  presses 
the  example  of  the  ancient  architects :  did  they  em- 
ploy a  subordinate  workman  as  sculptor,  ordering  of 
him  u  bishops  at  so  much  a  mitre,  and  cripples  at  so 
much  a  crutch  "  ?  Was  the  procession  on  the  portal 
of  Amiens  wrought  so  ? 

Amongst  the  many  sentences  that  in  the  course  of 
all  Ruskin's  books  correct  his  teaching  that  nothing 
in  nature  should  be  rejected  are  these :  "  A  looking- 
glass  does  not  design — it  receives  and  communicates 


"THE  TWO  PATHS"  143 

indiscriminately  .  .  . ;  a  painter  designs  when  he 
chooses  some  things,  refuses  others,  and  arranges  all." 
And  "  Design,  properly  so  called,  is  human  invention, 
consulting  human  capacity  "  (a  most  admirable  defi- 
nition). 

"  Out  of  the  infinite  heap  of  things  around  us  in 
the  world,  it  chooses  a  certain  number  which  it  can 
thoroughly  grasp,  and  presents  this  group  to  the  spec- 
tator in  the  form  best  calculated  to  enable  him  to  grasp 
it  also,  and  to  grasp  it  with  delight." 

Japanese  art  was  unconsidered  at  the  time  of  the 
writing  of  these  lectures.  One  may  wonder  how 
would  the  art,  the  people,  their  gentleness,  their  vices, 
their  monstrous  burlesque  of  human  form,  the  distor- 
tion, the  familiarity,  the  jeer,  the  mockery,  the 
malice,  the  delicate  and  intent  study  of  natural  fact 
in  plants  and  in  birds,  the  vitality,  and  especially  the 
love  of  innocent  life, — how  would  the  men  and  their 
art  show  under  the  intricate  tests  of  The  Two  Paths? 
Where  would  Japan  stand  in  that  entanglement  of 
India,  Scotland,  Rochdale,  and  Pisa  ? 

The  last  lecture  is  on  "  The  Work  of  Iron  in  Na- 
ture, Art,  and  Policy."  The  history  of  the  colour  of 
iron  in  the  landscape  is  brilliant  writing.  The  warn- 
ing against  the  foolish  use  of  the  word  "  freedom," 
and  against  the  foolish  enthusiasm  for  the  vague  idea, 
repeats  what  Ruskin  has  said  often  :  "  No  human 
being,  however  great  or  powerful,  was  ever  so  free  as 
a  fish.  There  is  always  something  that  he  must,  or 
must  not,  do." 


144  JOHN    RUSKIN 

"  In  these  and  all  matters  you  never  can  reason 
finally  from  the  abstraction,  for  both  liberty  and  re- 
straint are  good  when  they  are  nobly  chosen,  . 
but  of  the  two  .  .  .  it  is  restraint  which  char- 
acterises the  higher  creature,  and  betters  the  lower 
creature ;  and,  from  the  ministering  of  the  archangel 
to  the  labour  of  the  insect, — from  the  poising  of  the 
planets  to  the  gravitation  of  a  grain  of  dust, — the 
power  and  glory  of  all  creatures,  and  all  matter,  con- 
sist in  their  obedience,  not  in  their  freedom." 


CHAPTER  XIII 
"UNTO  THIS  LAST"  (1860) 

"  I  REST  satisfied  with  the  work,  though  with  noth- 
ing else  that  I  have  done,"  says  John  Ruskin  in  the 
preface  to  the  first  issue  after  the  publication  had  been 
stopped  in  the  Cornhill  Magazine;  and  in  1888  he 
said  that  he  would  be  content  that  all  the  rest  of  his 
books  should  be  destroyed  rather  than  this.  The 
book  was  to  give  in  plain  English — "  it  has  often 
been  incidentally  given  in  good  Greek  by  Plato  and 
Xenophon,  and  good  Latin  by  Cicero  and  Horace  " 
— a  logical  definition  of  wealth.  The  first  paper, 
"  The  Roots  of  Honour,"  treats  of  the  wages  of 
labour,  and  at  the  outset  relieves  the  reader  of  the 
usual  burden  of  deciding  whether  the  interests  of  em- 
ployer and  labourer  are  alike  or  opposed.  According 
to  circumstances  they  may  be  either.  But  it  is  not 
to  the  chance  of  the  harmony  of  interests,  nor  to  the 
possible  equity  of  opposition  of  interests — not  to  any 
chance  whatever — that  Ruskin  would  entrust  the  rate 
of  wages.  Unlike  other  writers  on  economy  at  that 
day,  he  thinks  it  possible  that  the  rate  of  wages  in 
industry  and  agriculture  should  be  fixed  by  legislation, 
and  fixed  irrespectively  of  the  demand  for  labour. 
Why  has  the  possibility  so  long  been  denied,  in  face 
of  the  fact  that  for  all  important  and  some  unimpor- 
tant labour,  wages  are  so  regulated — wages  of  the 


146  JOHN    RUSKIN 

prime  minister,  the  bishop,  the  general,  the  cabman, 
the  lawyer,  the  physician  ?  The  difficulty  as  to  good 
and  bad  work  Ruskin  decides  thus — the  good  labourer 
would  be  employed  and  the  bad  would  not ;  but  all 
employed  should  have  the  same  wages.  This,  more- 
over, is  done  in  the  cases  of  the  professions  already 
named.  A  bad  workman  should  not  be  permitted  to 
offer  his  work  at  half-price,  to  the  probable  injury  of 
the  good ;  it  is  his  freedom  to  do  so,  and  not  regula- 
tion, that  is  artificial  and  unnatural.  Education  would 
continuously  lessen  the  number  of  bad  workmen. 
The  second  aim  of  true  political  economy,  and  a  diffi- 
cult one,  is  to  maintain  employment  steadily  despite 
the  u  sudden  and  extensive  inequalities  of  demand." 
But  this  difficulty,  though  great,  would  not  be  so 
great  if  the  rushes  and  relaxations,  overwork  and 
idleness  alternately,  that  come  of  unequal  wages, 
were  at  an  end.  There  would  be  a  calming-down, 
and  employment  would  become  more  equal.  Further- 
more, the  labourer  might  be  taught  to  live  and  work 
more  steadily,  and  therefore  more  evenly,  by  the 
counsel  of  a  good  employer.  And  the  good  employer 
would  be  a  merchant  (for  example)  who  should  accept 
his  own  function  in  the  spirit  of  the  lawyer,  soldier, 
or  pastor — should  provide  by  commerce  for  the  na- 
tion, as  those  administer  law,  defend,  or  teach,  not 
seeking  profit  in  the  first  place,  but  rendering  in  the 
first  place  the  definite  service  of  providing. 

The  second  paper,  "  The  Veins  of  Wealth,"  draws 
the  distinction  between  mercantile  economy  (as  it 
actually  is)  and  true  political  economy,  the  first  being 


"  UNTO    THIS    LAST  "  147 

that  rule  of  riches  which  implies  poverty — that  is, 
relative  riches,  the  riches  of  individuals  or  classes ; 
whereas  political  economy  is  the  order  of  riches  of  the 
nation,  in  harmony,  not  in  internal  contrasts.  The 
art  of  becoming  rich  in  the  mercantile  sense  is  the  art 
of  keeping  others  poor.  Without  their  poverty,  ob- 
viously, the  successful  man  would  have  neither  servants 
nor  husbandmen  at  his  disposal.  "  The  establishment 
of  the  mercantile  wealth  which  consists  in  a  claim 
upon  labour  signifies  a  political  diminution  of  the  real 
wealth  which  consists  in  substantial  possessions." 
That  is,  the  man  who  has  become  poor,  and  thus  in- 
debted in  labour  to  the  rich,  has  been  unprofitable  to 
the  State.  If  the  rich  withdraws  into  idleness,  he  too 
becomes  unprofitable  to  the  State.  The  wealth  of 
individuals  may  be  gathered  in  masses,  but  whether 
for  good  or  evil  no  one  can  tell  by  the  mere  fact  of  its 
existence.  It  tends  to  gather  unequally ;  the  obvious 
inequalities  of  health,  character,  and  ability  will  have 
it  so.  But  the  sight  of  a  class  enriched  ought  not  to 
beguile  a  student  of  economy  to  think  he  sees  a  nation 
rich.  Nor  must — so  John  Ruskin  teaches — the  in- 
equality be  left  to  the  exaggerations  of  the  unregulated 
action  of  forces.  The  economists  of  1860  would  have 
it  that  the  course  of  demand  and  supply  cannot  be 
controlled  by  human  laws. 

"  Precisely  in  the  same  sense  .  .  .  the  waters 
of  the  world  go  where  they  are  required.  Where  the 
land  falls  the  water  flows.  .  .  .  But  the  disposition 
and  administration  .  .  .  can  be  altered  by  human 
forethought." 


148  JOHN    RUSKIN 

Ruskin  then  labours  to  find  a  rate  of  wages  so  just 
that  legislation  may  approve  and  enforce  it. 

"  The  abstract  idea  of  just  or  due  wages 
is  that  they  will  consist  in  a  sum  of  money  which  will 
at  any  time  procure  for  [the  labourer]  at  least  as  much 
labour  as  he  has  given.  .  .  .  And  this  equity 
of  payment  is,  observe,  wholly  independent 
of  any  reference  to  the  number  of  men  who  are  will- 
ing to  do  the  work." 

The  smith  who  gives  his  skill  and  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  of  his  life  to  forging  a  horse-shoe  has  a  right  to 
a  quarter  of  an  hour  of  equal  life  and  skill,  at  least,  in 
payment,  when  he  needs  it.  Then  comes  the  difficulty 
of  translating  this  into  the  kinds  of  payment  the  smith 
will  actually  desire.  But  Ruskin  believes  that  the 
discovery  of  the  right  representation  of  exchange  is  no 
more  difficult  than  that  of  the  "  maxima  and  minima 
of  the  vulgar  economist  " ;  the  cheapest  market  in 
which  the  vulgar  economists  recommend  a  man  to  buy 
and  the  dearest  in  which  they  advise  him  to  sell  have 
to  be  groped  for,  surely,  by  hard  measures.  (How 
right  Ruskin  is  when  he  says  that  commercial  riches 
implies  poverty  is  proved  by  this  once  respected  maxim. 
The  vaunted  wealth  was  not  and  never  could  be 
"  political  "  j  for  there  was  necessarily  a  man  selling 
in  the  cheapest  market  and  buying  in  the  dearest  at 
every  "  operation  "  of  the  "  principle  " — the  principle ! 
— "  Buy  in  the  cheapest,"  &c.)  In  brief,  a  just  man 
approaches  the  just  price,  as  an  unjust  approaches  his 
"  cheapest  "  and  "  dearest  "  markets.  Nay,  the  just 


"  UNTO    THIS    LAST  "  149 

man  comes  easily  nearer  to  the  object  of  his  search  ; 
or  it  would  be  better  to  say  that  there  is  something  for 
him  to  come  at,  whereas  the  commercial  economist 
touches  ground  nowhere. 

"  It  is  easier  to  determine  scientifically  what  a  man 
ought  to  have  for  his  work  than  what  his  necessities 
will  compel  him  to  take  for  it.  His  necessities  can 
only  be  ascertained  by  empirical,  but  his  due  by  ana- 
lytical, investigation." 

Neither  the  just  nor  the  unjust  hirer  employs  two 
men  where  only  one  man  is  needed.  But  in  the  just 
case  the  hired  labourer  may  be  able  to  hire,  for  his 
own  necessities,  another  workman  by  the  purchase  of 
what  he  needs  ;  and  the  influence  of  this  ability  passes 
on  through  all  the  kinds  and  grades  of  labour.  Ruskin's 
system  would  tend  to  send  wealth  flowing.  It  was, 
needless  to  say,  accused  of  socialism,  to  which  he 
answers,  not  very  profoundly  but  profoundly  enough 
for  the  purpose :  "  Whether  socialism  has  made  more 
progress  among  the  army  and  navy  (where  payment  is 
made  on  my  principles)  or  among  the  manufacturing 
operatives  (who  are  paid  on  my  opponents'  principles) 
I  leave  it  to  those  opponents  to  ascertain."  He  rec- 
ognises as  no  other  has  done  "the  impossibility  of 
equality."  He  had  said  in  Modern  Painters,  "  Govern- 
ment, and  Co-operation  are  .  .  .  the  Laws  of 
Life ;  Anarchy  and  Competition  the  Laws  of  Death." 
A  modern  reader  may  wonder  that  Ruskin  should,  in 
replying  to  a  charge  of  socialism,  defend  himself  by 
the  strange  means  of  a  denunciation  of  anarchy. 


I5O  JOHN    RUSKIN 

Anarchy  and  Socialism  are  the  two  poles  of  political 
principle,  as  we  know  now  that  the  words  are  better 
defined;  yet  even  to-day  the  two  opposites  are  con- 
fused in  daily  speech.  The  truth  is  that  Ruskin's 
system  is  highly  socialistic  because  it  is  opposed  to 
anarchy  and  to  the  licence  of  irresponsible  forces  such 
as  competition.  But  his  meaning  is  not  at  all  con- 
fused, although  in  this  one  instance  his  diction  is 
so. 

To  this  essay  there  are  two  important  notes;  one 
announcing  Ruskin  as  a  complete  Free-trader,  despite 
his  perception  of  the  false  grounds  on  which  the  pub- 
lic of  that  day  believed  in  Free  trade;  and  another 
suggesting  that  human  passion  might  enter  into  the 
calculations  of  science  as  justly  as  the  "  mere  thought " 
to  the  importance  whereof  Mill  confessed  that  he 
could  set  no  limit,  "  even  in  a  purely  productive  and 
material  point  of  view."  Mill  even  assigns  a  certain 
action  to  "feelings,"  but  only  to  those  "of  a  disa- 
greeable kind,"  as  discouragements  of  labour.  Ruskin 
would  permit  feelings  "  of  an  agreeable  kind  "  to  have 
their  turn. 

The  fourth  and  last  essay,  "  Ad  Valorem,"  deals 
with  the  search,  above-indicated,  of  "  the  equivalent  " 
— the  payment  that  would  represent,  in  the  hands  of 
the  labourer,  his  right  to  the  labour  of  another.  Rus- 
kin, in  this  research,  defines  Value,  Wealth,  Price, 
and  Produce.  I  confess  I  do  not  think  him  to  be  fair 
either  to  Mill  or  to  his  own  argument  when  he  with- 
ers that  writer  for  his  saying  that  political  economy 
has  nothing  to  do  with"  the  estimate  of  the  moralist." 


"UNTO  THIS  LAST"  151 

Mill  might  justly  say  this  of  a  science,  and  yet  be 
willing  that  the  science  should  be  overruled.  The 
economist's  business  is  to  demonstrate  the  laws  of 
wealth  and  their  working,  and  if  this  were  done  scien- 
tifically Ruskin  would  have  no  ground  of  opposition. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  he  has  legitimate  ground  in 
his  contention  that  Mill  is  unscientific,  because  it  is 
unscientific  to  make  no  calculation  of  human  feeling 
except  feeling  "  of  a  disagreeable  kind."  Into  that 
contention,  however,  I  do  not  see  that  moral  indigna- 
tion should  enter,  albeit  intellectual  irritation  may.  It 
is  not  Ruskin's  anger  that  replies  pat  to  Mill's  error, 
but  Ruskin's  detection,  declared  in  this  sentence : 
"  The  only  conclusions  of  his  which  I  have  to  dispute 
are  those  which  follow  from  his  premises."  For  he 
found  that  Mill  covertly  introduced  the  "  moral  esti- 
mate "  he  professed  to  exclude.  It  is  much  to  the 
purpose  also  to  expose  Mill's  definition :  "  Wealth 
consists  of  all  useful  and  agreeable  objects  which 
possess  exchangeable  value."  Usefulness  cannot — 
agreeableness  certainly  cannot — be  separated  from 
human  passion.  "Therefore,"  Ruskin  says,  "  polit- 
ical economy,  being  a  science  of  wealth,  must  be  a 
science  respecting  human  capacities  and  dispositions." 
A  "  definition  "  of  Ricardo's  he  shows  to  be  a  strange 
misfit  indeed  ;  and  a  plain  reader  wishes  Cobbett  were 
there  to  trip,  entangle,  and  fell  Ricardo  in  his  abomi- 
nable pronouns :  "  Utility  is  not  the  measure  of  ex- 
changeable value,  though  it  is  absolutely  essential  to 
it."  In  making  his  own  definition  of  value  Ruskin 
does  admirable  work  in  words.  He  reminds  us  of  the 


152  JOHN    RUSK.IN 

nominative  of  valorem  and  of  its  reference  to  health 
and,  in  the  original  sense,  to  virtue : 

41 A  truly  valuable  thing  is  that  which  leads  to  life. 
.  .  .  In  proportion  as  it  does  not  lead  to  life,  or 
as  its  strength  is  broken,  it  is  less  valuable ;  in  pro- 
portion as  it  leads  away  from  life,  it  is  invaluable." 

This  value  is  independent  of  opinion,  and  of  quan- 
tity. Here  we  get  back,  as  in  every  one  of  Ruskin's 
books,  to  that  absolute  good  that  Carlyle  warned  us 
not  to  doubt  at  our  peril.  Within  all  Ruskin's 
science,  all  his  art,  all  his  sight,  and  all  his  thought 
stands  this : 

"  The  real  science  of  political  economy,  which  has 
yet  to  be  distinguished  from  the  bastard  science,  as 
medicine  from  witchcraft,  ...  is  that  which 
teaches  nations  to  desire  and  labour  for  the  things  that 
lead  to  life." 

It  is  to  teach  them  to  destroy  things  that  lead  to 
destruction,  and  to  forsake  indifferent  things  that  do 
negative  evil.  Ruskin  then  defines  "  wealth  "  or 
"having,"  adding  to  Mill's  definition:  "To  be 
wealthy  is  to  have  a  large  stock  of  useful  articles," 
the  not  unnecessary  words,  "  which  we  can  use,"  and 
thus  bringing  in  once  again  the  human  power  and  the 
human  heart.  "Wealth,"  he  says,  "instead  of  de- 
pending merely  on  a  *  have,'  is  thus  seen  to  depend  on 
a  'can.'  Gladiator's  death,  on  a4habct';  but  sol- 
dier's victory,  and  state's  salvation,  on  a  *  quo  pluri- 
mum  posset.'  "  "  Wealth  ...  is  the  possession 


"UNTO  THIS  LAST"  153 

of  the  valuable  by  the  valiant."  As  to  price,  he 
teaches  that  in  as  much  as  it  is  exchange  value,  it  has 
nothing  to  do  with  profit.  It  is  only  in  labour 
there  can  be  profit,  or  advance.  The  processes  of 
exchange,  in  so  far  as  they  are  laborious,  may  bear 
profit,  as  involved  in  the  labours  of  production ;  but 
the  pure  exchange  is  absolute  exchange  and  nothing 
more.  Acquisition  there  is  in  mercantile  exchange, 
but  the  word  profit  should  represent  increase  such  as 
that  of  the  workshop  and  the  field.  Profit  is  of  "  po- 
litical," acquisition  of  u  mercantile,"  importance  ;  ac- 
quisition makes  poor  by  the  same  act  as  it  makes 
rich.  The  making  rich  is  conspicuous,  and  the  mak- 
ing poor  is  obscure,  but  none  the  less  real  because  it 
is  obscure,  of  the  back-street,  and  finally  of  the  grave  ; 
nothing  is  more  obscure  in  this  world.  Ruskin  holds 
the  science  of  acquisition  to  be  the  one  science  that 
is  "  founded  on  nescience,  and  an  art  founded  on  art- 
lessness."  All  other  arts  and  sciences,  except  this, 
"  have  for  their  object  the  doing  away  with  their  op- 
posite nescience  and  artlessness."  This  alone  needs 
the  existence  of  the  ignorance  and  helplessness 
whereby  its  knowledge  and  power  may  work. 

"  The  general  law,  then,  respecting  just  or  econom- 
ical exchange,  is  simply  this :  There  must  be  advan- 
tage on  both  sides  (or  if  only  advantage  on  one,  at 
least  no  disadvantage  on  the  other),  .  .  .  and 
just  payment  for  his  time,  intelligence,  and  labour  to 
any  intermediate  person  effecting  the  transaction. 
.  And  whatever  advantage  there  is  on  either 
side,  and  whatever  pay  is  given  to  the  intermediate 


154  JOHN    RUSKIN 

person,  should  be  thoroughly  known.  All  attempt  at 
concealment  implies  some  practice  of  the  opposite,  or 
undivine,  science,  founded  on  nescience." 

What  we  wish  for  is  to  be  reckoned  with  amongst 
our  gettings,  as  well  as  what  we  need.  We  wish  for 
romantic  things,  and  ideal ;  "  and  the  regulation  of 
the  purse  is,  in  its  essence,  regulation  of  the  imagina- 
tion and  the  heart."  Phenomena  of  price  are  there- 
fore extremely  complex,  but  price  is  to  be  calculated 
finally  in  labour,  and  Ruskin  goes  on  to  define  the  na- 
ture of  that  standard.  "The  price  of  other  things 
must  always  be  counted  by  the  quantity  of  labour; 
not  the  price  of  labour  by  the  quantity  of  other 
things."  And  this  is  well  illustrated  by  an  instance 
too  long  to  quote.  To  this  section  belongs  the  sin- 
gularly interesting  sentence  on  consumption  as  the 
end,  crown,  and  perfection  of  production.  Ruskin 
and  Mill  agree  mainly  in  regard  to  the  impoverishing 
political  effect  of  the  consumption  of  the  unproductive 
classes  and  of  the  vain  or  vicious  consumption  of  the 
productive  classes ;  but  pure  consumption  Mill  in- 
clines to  treat  as  though  there  were,  at  any  rate,  no 
good  in  it,  whereas  Ruskin  declares  it  to  be  in  itself 
good.  I  own  that  Mill  seems  to  me  on  this  point 
more  logical ;  that  Ruskin's  estimate  is  rather  of  the 
joy  and  happiness  whereof  consumption  is  the  cost 
than  of  consumption  itself;  and  that  it  is  scientific  to 
treat  consumption  as  loss — necessary  loss  or  unneces- 
sary— but  still  loss.  Obviously  if  men  could  live  for 
a  generation  without  food  all  granaries  might  over- 
flow ;  and  eating  gives  pleasure,  but  the  pleasure  does 


"UNTO  THIS  LAST"  155 

not  consist  in  eating  as  an  act  of  destruction.  Ruskin, 
however,  seems  to  speak  more  indisputably  when  he 
declares  all  wealth  to  be  measured  by  this  human  ca- 
pacity of  consumption,  and  shows  good  measures  of 
consumption  to  be  as  worthy  of  an  economist's  study 
as  good  measures  of  production.  He  next  opposes 
Mill's  assertion  that  "  A  demand  for  commodities  is 
not  a  demand  for  labour."  It  is  one  of  the  knotty 
points.  Near  this  follows  a  fine  passage  on  wars  of 
capitalists  and  on  the  taxing  of  future  generations. 

In  a  word,  the  book  is  part  of  the  perpetual  plea 
of  righteousness  against  blind  self-interest,  and  the 
plea  is  scientific.  It  closes  with  some  pages  beautiful 
beyond  praise,  and  full  of  the  dignity  of  confidence 
in  unalterable  facts.  Whilst  man  lives  by  bread,  by 
the  very  wheat  and  the  flocks,  the  sacred  necessities 
of  his  body — of  his  mouth — will  be  the  moderate 
measure  of  his  common  and  daily  wealth. 

"  All  England  may,  if  it  chooses,  become  one  man- 
ufacturing town ;  and  Englishmen,  sacrificing  them- 
selves to  the  good  of  general  humanity,  may  live 
diminished  lives  in  the  midst  of  noise,  of  darkness, 
and  of  deadly  exhalation.  But  the  world  cannot  be- 
come a  factory  or  a  mine.  .  .  .  Neither  the  av- 
arice nor  the  rage  of  men  will  ever  feed  them. 
So  long  as  men  live  by  bread,  the  far  away  valleys 
must  laugh  as  they  are  covered  with  the  gold  of  God, 
and  the  shouts  of  His  happy  multitudes  ring  round 
the  winepress  and  the  well." 

Then  he  consoles  the  mere  sentimentalist,  who 
might  fear  that  the  tilled  country,  peopled  one  day 


156  JOHN    RUSKIN 

with  its  natural  inheritors,  would  lose  its  beauty.  Not 
so,  Ruskin  says ;  let  the  desert  have  its  own  place,  but 
the  soil  is  "  loveliest  in  habitation.  .  .  .  The  de- 
sire of  the  heart  is  also  the  desire  of  the  eyes."  In 
this  he  proves  his  conversion  from  the  young  passion 
of  Modern  Painters  for  solitudes  and  its  contempt  of 
potato-patches.  He  ends : 

"  Not  greater  wealth,  but  simpler  pleasure. 
Waste  nothing,  and  grudge  nothing.  Care  in  nowise 
to  make  more  of  money,  but  care  to  make  much  of 
it ;  remembering  always  the  great,  palpable,  inevitable 
fact — that  what  one  person  has,  another  cannot  have. 
.  .  .  And  if,  on  due  and  honest  thought  over  these 
things,  it  seems  that  the  kind  of  existence  to  which 
men  are  now  summoned  by  every  plea  of  pity  and 
claim  of  right,  may,  for  some  time  at  least,  not  be  a 
luxurious  one ; — consider  whether,  even  supposing  it 
guiltless,  luxury  could  be  desired  by  any  of  us,  if  we 
saw  clearly  at  our  sides  the  suffering  which  accom- 
panies it  in  the  world.  .  .  .  The  crudest  man 
living  could  not  sit  at  his  feast,  unless  he  sat  blindfold. 
Raise  the  veil  boldly ;  face  the  light ;  and  if,  as  yet, 
the  light  of  the  eye  can  only  be  through  tears,  and  the 
light  of  the  body  through  sackcloth,  go  thou  forth 
weeping,  bearing  precious  seed." 

How  did  the  world  hear  this  appeal  ?  It  replied 
with  a  laugh.  Was,  then,  the  argument  of  the  book 
so  hollow  that  the  first  comer  could  refute  it  ?  Was 
the  feeling  of  the  book  so  small  that  the  first  comer 
might  deride  it  ?  John  Ruskin  was  bidden  to  go  back 
to  his  art-criticism.  Thackeray  stopped  the  papers  in 
the  Cornhill.  The  unsold  copies  of  the  reissue  re- 


"UNTO  THIS  LAST"  157 

mained  on  the  publisher's  hands.  Munera  Pulveris, 
a  more  technical  work  on  economy,  was  equally  un- 
acceptable in  the  pages  of  Eraser's  Magazine. 

And  now,  after  forty  years,  "  the  living  wage  "  is 
but  another  name  for  Ruskin's  fixity  of  payments. 
The  old-age  pensions  of  to-day  or  to-morrow  are  of 
his  proposal ;  so  are  technical  and  elementary  educa- 
tion by  the  State ;  government  workshops ;  fair  rents  j 
fixity  of  tenure ;  compensation  for  improvements ; 
compulsory  powers  of  allotment ;  the  preservation  of 
commons ;  municipal  recognition  of  trades-union  rates 
of  wages ;  all  are,  or  are  to  be,  rehearsals  of  measures 
suggested  by  him,  in  this  book  or  elsewhere,  to  the 
legislature.  Private  undertakings  have  followed  him 
no  less  in  the  building  and  regulation  of  houses  for 
the  poor. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
"SESAME  AND  LILIES"  (1864-1869) 

THIS  also  was  a  work  solemnly  presented.  Ruskin 
took  it  for  the  initial  volume  of  the  revised  series 
of  his  writings,  furnished  it  with  a  new  preface,  and 
added  to  the  two  lectures  a  third,  which  every  atten- 
tive reader  must  hold  to  be  amongst  the  most  mo- 
mentous of  the  expressions  of  his  mind.  It  is  not 
surprising,  to  one  who  has  recognised  in  the  book  a 
supreme  value,  to  find  that  in  the  later  preface  its 
author  declares  it  to  contain  the  best  of  many  state- 
ments of  his  purpose.  In  the  same  pages  he  takes 
occasion  to  present  himself  to  those  whose  confidence 
he  asks : 

"  Not  an  unjust  person  ;  not  an  unkind  one ;  a  lover 
of  order,  labour,  and  peace.  That,  it  seems  to  me, 
is  enough  to  give  me  right  to  say  all  I  care  to  say 
on  ethical  subjects  ;  more,  I  could  only  tell  definitely 
through  details  of  autobiography  such  as  none  but  pros- 
perous and  (in  the  simple  sense  of  the  word)  faultless 
lives  could  justify;  and  mine  has  been  neither.  Yet  if 
any  one,  skilled  in  reading  the  torn  manuscripts  of  the 
human  soul,  cares  for  more  intimate  knowledge  of  me, 
he  may  have  it  by  knowing  with  what  persons  in  past 
history  I  have  most  sympathy. 

"  I  will  name  three. 

"  In  all  that  is  strongest  and  deepest  in  me,  that  fits 
me  for  my  work,  and  gives  light  or  shadow  to  my  be- 
ing, I  have  sympathy  with  Guido  Guinicelli. 

158 


"SESAME  AND  LILIES"  159 

"  In  my  constant  natural  temper,  and  thoughts  of 
things  and  people,  with  Marmontel. 

"  In  my  enforced  and  accidental  temper,  and 
thoughts  of  things  and  people,  with  Dean  Swift." 

The  first  lecture — "  Sesame  :  of  Kings'  Treasuries" 
— is  chiefly  a  plea  for  accessible  libraries.  Its  demands 
have  been  fullfilled  in  part,  and  as  far  as  public 
authority  had  office  and  function  in  the  matter.  But 
in  part  also  the  urgent  counsel  of  the  lecture  has 
been  absolutely  contemned ;  for  it  represented  to  the 
hearers  that  inasmuch  as  life  is  very  short,  "  and  the 
quiet  hours  of  it  few,"  it  is  well  to  waste  none  of 
them  in  reading  worthless  books.  Public  libraries  are 
increasing — not  entirely  in  the  sense  in  which  Ruskin 
intended  to  commend  them  ;  for  he  wished  English- 
men to  be  rather  able  to  buy  good  books  securely 
than  to  read  them  free  of  cost ;  yet  in  a  very  real 
sense  treasuries  have  been  stored  for  the  use  of  the 
"  quiet  hours "  of  citizens.  But  it  is  evident  that 
more  of  the  quiet  hours  of  this  short  life  are  wasted 
now  in  reading  worthless  books  than  when  the  re- 
monstrance was  spoken.  The  private  following  of 
Ruskin's  teaching,  however  diligent  it  may  have  been 
with  a  few,  separate  and  single,  has  been  as  nothing 
amongst  the  multitude  of  units.  Corporately  in  munic- 
ipal action,  and  obscurely  in  the  practice  of  two  or 
three — not  joined  together,  but  scattered  out  of  sight 
— "  Sesame  "  had  its  share  of  influence ;  but  its  appeal 
was  to  the  private  throng,  thousands  and  millions, 
whose  conduct  of  life  is  matter  of  their  own  mul- 
titudinous but  solitary  responsibility.  And  in  this 


l6o  JOHN    RUSKIN 

matter  of  idle  reading,  general  opinion  grows  daily 
more  relaxed.  Ruskin  would  teach  men  to  read  ; 
and  from  this  long  instruction,  in  which  not  a  sen- 
tence is  futile,  I  gather  first  the  rebuke  of  that 
common  appreciation,  "  How  good  this  is — that's  ex- 
actly what  I  think  !  "  The  right  feeling  is  rather, 
"  How  strange  that  is !  I  never  thought  of  that 
before,  and  yet  I  see  it  is  true ;  or  if  I  do  not 
now,  I  hope  I  shall,  some  day."  This  is  asking 
perhaps  overmuch  submission  ;  and  assuredly  litera- 
ture is  a  question,  a  recognition,  a  consultation,  an 
evocation  to  the  reader's  spirit.  //  poeta  mi  disse  : 
Che  pense  ?  And  what  Virgil  asked  of  his  student, 
Dante,  every  poet  asks  of  a  young  man.  But  Ruskin 
says,  "  Be  sure  that  you  go  to  the  author  to  get  at 
his  meaning,  not  to  find  yours  "  ;  and  that  doubtless 
is  the  first  step.  Next  the  reader  is  bidden  to  look 
intently  at  words  and  to  know  their  history.  "  Let 
the  accent  of  words  be  watched,  and  closely  :  let 
their  meaning  be  watched  more  closely  still,  and 
fewer  will  do  the  work.  .  .  .  There  are  masked 
words  droning  and  skulking  about  us  in  Europe  just 
now."  How  excellent  a  phrase  !  Ruskin  is  not  of 
those  who  think  English  to  be  a  fortunate  language 
in  that  it  has  words  of  Greek  and  Latin  derivation 
for  august  and  awful  things.  He  would  have  us 
transpose  what  we  have  so  arbitrarily  placed — "  damn  " 
and  "  condemn  "  by  popular  use,  for  example,  and 
u  Bible  "  and  "  book  "  by  derivation.  Nevertheless 
there  might  be  much  to  be  said  on  the  other  side. 
Quote  the  French  Scriptures,  in  words  that  do  journey- 


"SESAME  AND  LILIES"  161 

man's  work — nay,  worse,  commercial  work — in  daily 
life,  and  see  the  loss.  The  world  acquires  and  pos- 
sesses a  greater  number  of  things — spiritual  things — 
as  it  grows  older ;  nobler  its  possessions  may  not  be, 
but  they  are  certainly  more  numerous ;  and  England, 
among  the  nations  of  the  world,  is  happy  in  the  fact 
that  she  is  able,  better  than  the  rest,  to  multiply 
names  for  these  things  by  her  power  of  giving  to 
one  word  two  forms.  Has  not  Ruskin  himself  been 
able  to  think  more  remotely  and  more  intellectually 
by  means  of  the  removed  and  immaterial  Latin  word 
of  what  he  calls  our  "  mongrel  tongue  "  ?  No  imag- 
inative reader,  however,  and  no  reader  who  knows 
anything  of  Ruskin,  will  need  to  be  told  that  when 
he  would  have  us  to  counterchange  "  Bible  "  and 
"  book,"  or  any  such  words,  he  would  add  to  the 
gravity  of  this  word,  not  take  away  from  the  gravity 
of  that.  But  no  reader  who  knows  anything  of  the 
world  will  need  to  be  told  that  in  effect  the  counter- 
change  would  add  nothing  to  the  gravity  of  one 
word  and  would  take  much  from  the  gravity  of  the 
other. 

As  a  lesson  in  the  intent  study  of  words,  such  as  a 
great  poet  claims  from  his  reader  by  his  own  weight 
of  special  purpose — the  single  stroke  struck  with 
single  intention — Ruskin  takes  his  hearers  through  the 
St.  Peter  passage  of  Lycidas.  Every  word  has  full 
audience,  and  makes  an  ample  discharge  of  Milton's 
meaning  at  the  assize  of  this  solicitous  judge.  Nor 
may  we  complain  that  such  separate  audience  re- 
sembles the  judgment  of  one  who  would  take  a  lens 


l6l  JOHN    RUSKIN 

to  look  at  a  picture  piecemeal.  The  particular  verbal 
examination  is  entirely  right,  it  answers  immediately 
to  a  special  claim  of  the  poet  in  a  special  passage ; 
anon  he  will  relax  his  demands,  and  you  the  instance 
of  your  attention.  And  so  does  Holbein  draw  finely, 
intensely,  and  much,  some  passage  of  anatomical 
articulation,  and  then  pass  to  a  larger  and  slighter 
drawing  of  the  laxer  forms  of  flesh. 

But  the  mournful  point  of  this  lecture  on  reading 
is  that  after  all  it  is  a  lecture  against  reading.  The 
lecturer  himself  must  not  follow  his  proper  vocation 
— chiefly,  he  has  said  elsewhere,  the  outlining  of 
primroses;  because  no  savages  are  housed  so  ill  as 
the  poor  of  English  towns,  or  die  so  lonely  ;  and  no 
man  nor  woman  ought  to  follow  the  vocation  of  art 
or  study  until  the  lost  were  rescued  and  the  names 
of  the  unknown  written  in  a  register  open  under  the 
eyes  of  a  responsible  compassion.  And  even  if  it 
were  fit  that  the  arts  should  engross  the  human  energy 
that  is  due  to  the  tasks  of  succour,  how  should  a 
covetous  people  read  aright  ?  With  the  love  of 
money  publicly  confessed  to  be  the  motive  of  all 
action,  the  insanity  of  avarice  is  broadcast,  and  the 
insane  are  incapable  of  thought. 

"  Happily  our  disease  is,  as  yet,  little  worse  than 
this  incapacity  of  thought,  ...  we  are  still  in- 
dustrious to  the  last  hour  of  the  day,  though  we  add 
the  gambler's  fury  to  the  labourer's  patience ;  we  are 
still  brave  to  the  death,  though  incapable  of  discern- 
ing the  true  cause  for  battle  ;  and  are  still  true  in  af- 
fection to  our  own  flesh.  .  .  .  There  is  hope  for 


"SESAME  AND  LILIES"  163 

a  nation  while  this  can  still  be  said  of  it.  As  long  as  it 
holds  its  life  in  its  hand,  ready  to  give  it  for  its  honour 
(though  a  foolish  honour),  for  its  love  (though  a  selfish 
love),  and  for  its  business  (though  a  base  business), 
there  is  hope  for  it.  But  hope  only  ;  for  this  instinc- 
tive, reckless  virtue  cannot  last." 

On  the  last  page,  after  the  evil  of  privilege  has 
been  shown  fully,  broadly,  and  with  the  most  im- 
petuous will,  the  problem  of  privilege  is  touched 
where  it  lies,  known  to  all  men,  awaiting  some  solu- 
tion in  the  future,  not  always  to  make  matter  for  the 
last  of  seventy  pages  : 

"  The    principal    question    remains    inexorable, — 
.     which   of   us,  in   brief  word,  is   to  do  the 
hard  and  dirty  work  for  the  rest — and  for  what  pay  ? 
Who  is  to  do  the  pleasant  and  clean  work,  and  for 
what    pay  ?  We    live,   we   gentlemen,    on 

delicatest  prey,  after  the  manner  of  weasels  ; 
we  keep  a  certain  number  of  clowns  digging  and 
ditching,  and  generally  stupefied,  in  order  that  we, 
being  fed  gratis,  may  have  all  the  thinking  and  feel- 
ing to  ourselves.  .  .  .  Yet  .  .  .  it  is  per- 
haps better  to  build  a  beautiful  human  creature  than  a 
beautiful  dome  or  steeple,  .  .  .  only  the  beauti- 
ful human  creature  will  hav^e  some  duties  to  do  in  re- 
turn." 

It  is  of  these  duties  that  the  second  lecture,  "Of 
Queens'  Gardens,"  treats  with  singular  beauty.  The 
foregoing  pages  of  the  book  as  it  stands  had  assuredly 
cast  not  only  sudden  lights  upon  the  evil  but  black 
shadows  upon  the  good  of  modern  English  life.  Not 
a  word,  for  instance,  of  the  vast  alms,  of  the  private 


164  JOHN    RUSKIN 

and  voluntary  but  corporate  service  rendered  to  all 
kinds  of  distress,  of  the  great  socialistic  confession 
of  the  theory  of  the  Poor  Law ;  not  a  word  of  any 
business  that  is  not  "  base  "  or  of  any  love  that  is  not 
"  selfish."  But  in  u  Lilies  "  the  teaching  is  addressed 
particularly  to  women  of  a  kind  and  class  that  ac- 
knowledge conscience  and  are  concerned  with  private 
duty,  though  they  can  hardly  be  charged  with  an  in- 
tellectual responsibility  for  the  national  condition. 
In  effect,  the  examples  proposed  to  them  by  Ruskin 
are  those  of  heroines  who  have  never  questioned  the 
privilege — moral,  mental,  bodily — into  which  they 
were  born.  Nor  have  the  women  addressed  inquired 
into  the  conditions  of  their  own  privilege,  even 
though  they  may  vaguely  avow  that  some  obligations 
are  implied  by  their  unexplained  "  rights."  In  ad- 
dressing women  at  all  Ruskin  tells  us  he  had  recourse 
to  "  faith  " ;  it  was  a  faith  that  could  boast  of  no 
great  foundation  : 

"  I  wrote  c  Lilies '  to  please  one  girl ;  and  were  it 
not  for  what  I  remember  of  her,  and  of  few  besides, 
should  now  recast  some  of  the  sentences.  .  .  . 
The  fashion  of  the  time  renders  whatever  is  forward, 
coarse,  or  senseless,  in  feminine  nature,  too  palpable 
to  all  men." 

The  "one  girl"  was  the  "Rosie"  of  Pr*terita, 
whom,  child  and  woman,  he  had  loved,  and  who  was 
dead  (1875)  when  he  revised  the  pages  written  for 
her.  As  to  the  audience  then  left  to  him,  he  says 
that  the  picturesqueness  of  his  earlier  writings  "  had 


"SESAME  AND  LILIES"  165 

brought  him  acquainted  with  much  of  their  emptiest 
enthusiasms  "  ;  and  as  to  the  failure  of  women  in  re- 
lation to  his  own  life,  "  What  I  might  have  been  so 
helped  "  [that  is,  helped  by  a  woman]  "  I  rarely  in- 
dulge myself  in  the  idleness  of  thinking." 

He  proposes  examples  of  heroic  nature,  and  the 
entirely  heroic  nature  of  the  women  of  Shakespeare 
all  worthy  young  readers  will  grant  to  Ruskin's  lovely 
exposition.  But  they  will  assuredly  boggle  at  a  like 
ascription  of  honour  to  the  women  of  Scott.  These 
young  creatures  Scott  made  virtuous  because  conven- 
tion required  a  virtuous  maid  for  the  hero  to  love,  and 
made  faultless,  at  a  blow,  because  he  could  not  be  at 
the  pains  to  work  upon  their  characters.  It  is  chilling 
to  hear  their  intellect  and  tenderness  praised  in  the 
noble  terms  that  honour  the  intellect  and  tenderness 
of  Imogen,  Hermione,  or  Perdita,  of  a  goddess,  or  of 
the  fairy  women  of  romance :  "  I  would  take 
Spenser,  and  show  you  how  all  his  fairy  knights  are 
sometimes  deceived  and  sometimes  vanquished ;  but 
the  soul  of  Una  is  never  darkened,  and  the  spear  of 
Britomart  is  never  broken." — "  That  Athena  of  the 
olive-helm  and  cloudy  shield,  to  faith  in  whom  you 
owe,  down  to  this  date,  whatever  you  hold  most 
precious  in  art,  in  literature,  or  in  types  of  national 
virtue." 

As  for  the  education  of  the  girl  who  is  in  England 
born  into  the  inheritance  of  the  privilege  of  what  is — 
while  the  disinherited  consent — her  own  place,  Ruskin 
counsels  what  perhaps  no  one  will  question.  She  is  to 
be  trained  in  habits  of  accurate  thought ;  she  is  to 


1 66  JOHN    RUSKIN 

understand  the  meaning,  the  inevitableness,  and  the 
loveliness  of  natural  laws ;  and  to  u  follow  at  least 
some  one  path  of  scientific  attainment  as  far  as  to  the 
threshold  of  that  bitter  Valley  of  Humiliation  into 
which  only  the  wisest  and  bravest  of  men  can  de- 
scend, owning  themselves  for  ever  children,  gathering 
pebbles  on  a  boundless  shore."  To  the  girl  herself 
Ruskin  makes  a  passionate  appeal.  To  no  one,  to 
no  class,  has  he  spoken  words  more  urgent,  more 
hardly  wrung  from  his  profound  distress  and  desire  on 
behalf  of  mankind.  The  criminal  is  beyond  reach, 
in  the  grip  of  circumstance  and  of  passion j  the 
political  economist  is,  according  to  Ruskin,  teaching 
his  own  different  lesson ;  the  soldier  is  under  another 
obedience;  the  man  is  indocile.  But  here,  in  the 
nation,  is  the  girl,  for  a  score  of  reasons  accessible 
and  profitable.  Against  her  sins  there  is  no  legisla- 
tion, against  her  destructiveness  no  national  protest, 
no  public  opinion  against  her  cruelty.  In  Sesame 
and  Lilies  she  learns  that  she  must  not  be  cruel,  and 
that  she  must  not  be  idle — that  her  idleness  cannot 
but  be  cruel ;  at  her  disposal  is  the  awful  force  of  the 
negation  of  good.  He,  who  does  not  wonder  at  the 
death  of  the  miser,  at  the  life  of  the  sensualist,  at  the 
frenzy  of  nations,  at  the  crimes  of  kings,  does  wonder 
at  the  lack  of  mercy  in  the  heart  of  a  fortunate 
woman.  He  would  persuade  her  to  make  garments 
for  the  poor  and  to  give  alms,  not  to  eat  her  bread  in 
idleness,  not  to  waste  it ;  to  live  and  care  for  no 
flowers  until  she  shall  have  rescued  the  withering 
flowers  of  miserable  childhood  : 


"SESAME  AND  LILIES"  167 

"  Did  you  ever  hear,  not  of  a  Maud  but  a  Made- 
leine, who  went  down  to  her  garden  in  the  dawn,  and 
found  One  waiting  at  the  gate,  whom  she  supposed 
to  be  the  gardener  ?  " 

The  third  and  last  lecture  bound  in  this  volume — 
"  The  Mystery  of  Life  and  its  Arts,"  delivered  in 
Dublin  in  1868 — has  near  its  opening  this  passage: 

"  I  have  had  what,  in  many  respects,  I  boldly  call 
the  misfortune,  to  set  my  words  somewhat  prettily  to- 
gether ;  not  without  a  foolish  vanity  in  the  poor  knack 
I  had  of  doing  so ;  until  I  was  heavily  punished  for 
this  pride,  by  finding  that  many  people  thought  of  the 
words  only,  and  cared  nothing  for  the  meaning." 

A  little  further  is  this  : 

"  I  spent  the  ten  strongest  years  of  my  life  (from 
twenty  to  thirty)  in  endeavouring  to  show  the  excel- 
lence of  the  work  of  the  man  whom  I  believed,  and 
rightly  believed,  to  be  the  greatest  painter  of  the 
schools  of  England  since  Reynolds.  I  had  then  per- 
fect faith  in  the  power  of  every  great  truth  or  beauty 
to  prevail  ultimately.  .  .  .  Fortunately  or  un- 
fortunately, an  opportunity  of  perfect  trial  undeceived 
me  at  once  and  forever." 

Ruskin  found  that  the  Turner  drawings  arranged  by 
him  for  exhibition  were  the  object  of  absolute  public 
neglect.  He  saw  that  his  ten  years  had  been  lost. 

"  For  that  I  did  not  much  care ;  I  had,  at  least, 
learned  my  own  business  thoroughly.  .  .  .  But 
what  I  did  care  for  was  the — to  me  frightful — dis- 
covery, that  the  most  splendid  genius  in  the  arts 


l68  JOHN    RUSK.IN 

might   be    permitted    by    Providence   to   labour  and 

perish  uselessly,     .     .     .     that  the  glory  of  it  was 

perishable  as  well  as  invisible.  That  was  the  first 
mystery  of  life  to  me." 

The  reader  will  remember  that  Turner's  pictures  were 
not  only  neglected  by  men,  but  also  irreparably  injured 
and  altered  by  time ;  to  witness  this  was  to  endure  the 
chastisement  of  a  hope  whereof  few  men  are  capable. 
Surely  it  is  no  obscure  sign  of  greatness  in  a  soul — 
that  it  should  have  hoped  so  much.  Ninety  and 
nine  are  they  who  need  no  repentance,  having  not 
committed  the  sin  of  going  thus  in  front  of  the 
judgments  of  Heaven — heralds — and  have  not  been 
called  back  to  rebuke  as  was  this  one.  In  what  has 
so  often  been  called  the  dogmatism  of  Ruskin's  work 
appears  this  all-noble  fault. 

Upon  the  discovery  of  this  mystery  crowd  all  the 
mysteries.  Who  that  has  suffered  one  but  has  also 
soon  suffered  all  ?  In  this  great  lecture  Ruskin  con- 
fesses them  one  by  one,  in  extremities  of  soul.  And 
he  is  aghast  at  the  indifference  not  of  the  vulgar  only, 
but  of  poets.  The  seers  themselves  have  paltered 
with  the  faculty  of  sight.  Milton's  history  of  the 
fall  of  the  angels  is  unbelievable  to  himself,  told  with 
artifice  and  invention,  not  a  living  truth  presented  to 
living  faith,  nor  told  as  he  must  answer  it  in  the  last 
judgment  of  the  intellectual  conscience. 

u  Dante's  conception  is  far  more  intense,  and  by 
himself  for  the  time,  not  to  be  escaped  from  ;  it  is  in- 
deed a  vision,  but  a  vision  only.  .  .  .  And  the 
destinies  of  the  Christian  Church,  under  their  most 


"SESAME  AND  LILIES"  169 

sacred  symbols,  become  literally  subordinate  to  the 
praise,  and  are  only  to  be  understood  by  the  aid,  of 
one  dear  Florentine  maiden.  ...  It  seems  daily 
more  amazing  to  me  that  men  such  as  these  should 
dare  to  ...  fill  the  openings  of  eternity,  before 
which  prophets  have  veiled  their  faces, 
with  idle  puppets  of  their  scholastic  imagination,  and 
melancholy  lights  of  frantic  faith  in  their  lost  mortal 
love." 

The  indifference  of  the  world  as  to  the  infinite 
question  of  religion,  the  indifference  of  all  mankind 
as  to  the  purpose  of  its  little  life,  of  every  man  as  to 
the  effect  of  his  little  life — in  an  evil  hour  these 
puzzles  throng  the  way  to  the  recesses  of  thought. 
As  it  chanced,  with  the  irony  of  things,  Ruskin  had 
been  bidden  to  avoid  religious  questions  in  Dublin  for 
fear  of  offending  some  of  his  hearers.  What  he  had 
been  moved  to  say,  however,  he  thought  would  offend 
all  if  it  offended  any,  and  not  in  Dublin  only  but  in 
the  breadth  and  in  the  corners  of  the  world.  But  as 
his  audience  expected  to  hear  about  "  art,"  and  not 
about  the  mysteries  of  life,  he  closes  the  lecture  in 
his  old  manner,  with  all  the  splendid  confidence  of 
teaching,  demonstrating  the  cause  of  the  good  fortune 
of  this  art  and  of  the  disaster  of  that,  putting  away 
once  more  what  he  confessed  to  be  the  unanswerable, 
for  the  exposition  of  what  he  held  to  be  the  answer- 
able, question.  In  a  delightful  passage  (what  wonder 
that  his  hearers  wanted  to  hear  it  ?)  he  recurs  to  the 
contrast  of  the  Lombardic  Eve — the  barbarous  carving 
that  had  a  future,  with  the  Angel  (it  was  an  Irish 
angel,  by  the  way),  the  barbarous  design  that  had  no 


170  JOHN    RUSKIN 

possible  artistic  future  and  was  the  end  of  its  own 
futile  attempt ;  these  had  been  described  in  The  Two 
Paths.  Here  is  Ruskin  leaving  the  Mystery  for  the 
lesson.  But,  strange  to  say,  if  ever  he  has  explained 
in  vain,  registered  an  inconsequence,  committed  him- 
self to  failure,  it  has  been  in  the  generous  cause  of 
possible  rescue — it  has  been  in  the  Lesson. 


CHAPTER  XV 
"THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE"  (1866) 

WHETHER  the  four  lectures  published  under  this 
title  chanced  to  be  written  at  a  time  of  interior  weak- 
ness I  know  not ;  but  at  least  two  of  them  bear  such 
signs  of  flagging  life  as  are  not  to  be  found  elsewhere. 
Alike  in  gentleness,  in  play,  in  gravity,  and  in  violence 
— in  exaggeration  itself,  which  wastes  the  life  of  all 
other  writers — Ruskin  has  an  incomparable  vitality ; 
and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that,  amongst  these 
many  books,  only  in  the  lecture  on  "War  "is  the 
place  of  this  vitality  taken  by  vivacity  and  excite- 
ment; but  the  following  lecture,  "The  Future  of 
England,"  seems  also  to  show  signs  of  the  spur. 
Both  lectures  were  given  at  Woolwich — the  one  at 
the  Royal  Military  Academy,  and  the  other  at  the 
Royal  Artillery  Institution,  with  four  years  between. 
Ruskin  had  been  asked,  not  once  or  twice,  to  speak 
to  the  young  soldier,  and  had  "  not  ventured  persist- 
ently to  refuse  "  ;  and  perhaps  the  knowledge  that  he 
had  a  paradox  before  him  caused  him  to  make  the 
paradox  a  sort  of  impossibility,  in  very  despair.  Ac- 
cordingly we  have  it :  "  All  the  pure  and  noble  arts 
of  peace  are  founded  on  war  " ;  "  No  great  art  ever 
yet  arose  on  earth,  but  among  a  nation  of  soldiers  "  ; 
"  There  is  no  art  among  a  shepherd  people,  if  it  re- 
mains at  peace  "  ;  "  There  is  no  great  art  possible  to 

171 


172  JOHN    RUSKIN 

a  nation  but  that  which  is  based  on  battle."  The 
reader  is  almost  able  to  imagine  for  himself  how  Rus- 
kin  opposes  these  assertions  by  condemnations  of  the 
contentious  temper  of  man  who,  set  to  dress  and  to 
keep  his  garden,  delighted  to  trample  it  in  quarrel. 
The  opposition  is  violent  enough,  but  there  is,  for 
once,  a  lack  of  passion.  Not  so  when  war  ceases  to 
be  directly  the  theme,  and  Ruskin  approaches  once 
more  the  intricate  but  more  accessible  question  of 
public  economy : 

"  You  object,  Lords  of  England,  to  increase,  to  the 
poor,  the  wages  you  give  them,  because  they  spend 
them,  you  say,  unadvisedly.  Render  them,  therefore, 
an  account  of  the  wages  which  they  give  you;  and 
show  them,  by  your  example,  how  to  spend  theirs  to 
the  last  farthing,  advisedly." 

He  had  just  then  heard  of  working  men  who  spent 
their  wages  in  the  brief  time  of  prosperity  "  by  sitting 
two  days  a-week  in  the  tavern  parlour,  ladling  port 
wine,  not  out  of  bowls,  but  out  of  buckets  "  ;  and  he 
remembered  the  example  set  to  them  at  his  own  first 
college  supper. 

The  two  other  lectures  are  on  "  Work "  and 
"  Traffic,"  and  the  first  was  for  a  Working  Men's 
Institute.  The  main  matter  treated  is  the  appoint- 
ment made  by  capital  of  the  kind  and  the  object  of 
labour.  No  other  operation  of  capital — not  even  the 
paying  of  wages — is  so  momentous  as  this  for  the  in- 
terests of  the  labouring  class ;  Ruskin  accuses  the 
writers  on  political  economy  of  neglecting  its  impor- 


"THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE"  173 

tance,  but  I  think  that  Mill  has  sufficiently  marked 
it,  in  his  own  way.  The  difference  between  Ruskin 
and  the  others  is  probably  that  he  sees  waste,  inutility, 
and  mischief  where  others,  beguiled  of  their  clear  per- 
ceptions by  commercial  (or  non-political)  economy, 
were  not  aware  of  it :  in  iron  railings,  for  example, 
set  up  before  a  new  public-house : 

"  The  front  of  it  was  built  in  so  wise  manner,  that 
a  recess  of  two  feet  was  left  below  its  front  windows, 
between  them  and  the  street-pavement ;  a  recess  too 
narrow  for  any  possible  use  (for  even  if  it  had  been 
occupied  by  a  seat,  as  in  old  time  it  might  have  been, 
everybody  walking  along  the  street  would  have  fallen 
over  the  legs  of  the  reposing  wayfarer).  But,  by  way 
of  making  this  two  feet  depth  of  freehold  land  more 
expressive  of  the  dignity  of  an  establishment  for  the 
sale  of  spirituous  liquors,  it  was  fenced  from  the  pave- 
ment by  an  imposing  iron  railing,  having  four  or  five 
spear-heads  to  the  yard  of  it,  and  six  feet  high ;  con- 
taining as  much  iron  and  iron-work,  indeed,  as  could 
well  be  put  into  the  space;  and  by  this  stately  ar- 
rangement, the  little  piece  of  dead  ground  within 
.  became  a  protective  receptacle  of  refuse." 

It  was  only  Ruskin  who  saw  this  work  to  be  im- 
poverishing ;  and  hard  by  this  Croydon  railing  was 
the  once  sweet  stream  at  Carshalton,  full  of  festering 
refuse  that  a  little  natural  labour  would  have  cleared. 
Food,  fresh  air,  and  pure  water  brought  about  by 
labour  are  so  much  gain  to  the  nation — a  political 
possession — even  if  the  labour  spent  on  them  be  ill 
paid. 

The  lecture  on  "  Traffic  "  was  given  in  the  Brad- 


174  JOHN    RUSK.IN 

ford  Town  Hall  on  the  eve  of  the  building  of  a  new 
Exchange.  "  I  do  not  care  about  this  Exchange," 
said  the  lecturer,  "  because  you  don't." 

"  You  know  there  are  a  great  many  odd  styles  of 
architecture  about;  you  don't  want  to  do  anything 
ridiculous;  you  hear  of  me,  among  others,  as  a  re- 
spectable architectural  man-milliner,  and  you  send  for 
me." 

His  hope  was  to  teach  his  hearers  to  like  some- 
thing, and  to  build  what  they  could  like.  "  The  first 
and  last,  and  closest  trial  question  to  any  living  crea- 
ture is  *  What  do  you  like  ? '  .  .  .  Taste  is  not 
only  a  pan  and  an  index  of  morality  ; — it  is  the  only 
morality." 


CHAPTER  XVI 
"TIME    AND   TIDE    BY   WEARE    AND  TYNE"  (1867) 

THE  years  1866  and  1867  are  famous  in  the  history 
of  self-government  in  England.  The  agitator  and  the 
legislator,  this  party  and  that,  vied  amongst  themselves 
for  a  place  not  in  the  vanward  and  the  rearward,  but 
both  in  the  vanward.  Democracy  gained  ground  that 
would  not  have  been  yielded  to  it  without  the  slight 
quibble  of  altered  names.  At  any  rate  it  was  in  1866 
that  the  two  parties  began  to  intersect  one  another  at 
various  points,  and  the  intersections  took  names.  The 
great  two  parties  of  political  history  were  virtually 
confusible ;  somewhat  like  the  little  animals,  one  im- 
placental  and  the  other  placental,  and  therefore  derived 
by  descent  through  ways  that  lay  apart  for  incalculable 
years,  yet  so  like  each  other  in  shape,  habit,  and  feature 
that  to  see  them  run  in  the  fields  you  cannot  tell  them 
apart.  Everything  then  became  technically  political ; 
politics  became  a  matter  not  of  principle  but  of  termi- 
nology ;  and  amid  the  arbitrary  passion  about  words, 
Ruskin  wrote  his  twenty-five  letters  to  a  workingman 
of  Sunderland  on  the  Laws  of  Work,  to  which  he 
gave  the  aforesaid  title,  and  which  were  intended  to 
teach  realities.  Ruskin  himself  at  times  used  the 
names  of  parties,  calling  himself  a  Tory  or  what  not. 
But  the  writer  of  Time  and  Tide  is  one  who  warns 
Tory  and  Radical  alike  against  the  illusion  of  outward 

175 


176  JOHN    RUSK.IN 

liberty,  and  enforces  the  necessity  of  inward  law  first, 
and  of  outward  law  secondly,  to  execute  the  first. 
Freedom  from  covetousness,  freedom  from  luxury, 
protection  from  cruelty — Ruskin  would  ensure  these 
with  so  much  force  that  standing  somewhere  between 
the  extremity  of  socialism  on  the  one  hand  and  the 
extremity  of  anarchism  on  the  other,  it  would  certainly 
be  to  socialists  that  he  would  seem  to  be  gathered. 
Nevertheless,  though  the  socialist  might  quote  Time 
and  Tide  in  favour  of  licences  to  marry,  yet  the 
anarchist  might  cite  the  same  book  against  the  army 
estimates. 

It  is  in  this  little  volume,  written  when  men — at  a 
time  of  political  revision — were  not  ashamed  to  make 
fresh  plans  (called  Utopias  in  the  language  of  the 
newspaper)  for  society,  that  Ruskin  has  given  himself 
the  greatest  freedom  of  proposal.  That  is,  he  takes, 
for  all  his  sad  heart,  something  of  the  pleasure  of  a 
child  planning  the  laws  and  economies  of  its  own 
island  in  the  Pacific  Ocean.  There  is  an  ingenious 
interest  in  the  work,  and  withal  a  profound  conviction 
of  the  wisdom  of  what  seems  so  visionary.  It  is 
needless  to  say  that  a  proposal  to  give  young  men  and 
rosieres  a  licence  to  marry  when  they  deserved  it  re- 
ceived from  the  world  the  derision  that  costs  nothing 
— not  even  the  pains  of  reading  the  book.  The  book, 
indeed,  is  full  rather  of  desires  than  of  hopes,  and  its 
dejection  is  almost  as  great  as  that  manifest  in  the 
most  decoratively  beautiful  of  Ruskin's  writings — 
Sesame  and  Lilies.  He  was  not  able  to  acquiesce  in 
the  sufferings  of  cities.  He  was  obliged  to  try  to 


"TIME  AND  TIDE  BY  WEARE  AND  TYNE  "    177 

think  for  the  foolish  and  work  for  the  helpless,  and  to 
give  to  the  disinherited.  He  was  not  able,  besides,  to 
acquiesce  in  the  profanations. 

"  The  action  of  the  deceiving  or  devilish  power  is 
in  nothing  shown  quite  so  distinctly  among  us  at  this 
day — not  even  in  our  commercial  dishonesties,  nor  in 
our  social  cruelties — as  in  its  having  been  able  to  take 
away  music,  as  an  instrument  of  education,  altogether ; 
and  to  enlist  it  wholly  in  the  service  of  superstition 
on  the  one  hand,  and  of  sensuality  on  the  other." 

It  is  right  that  I  should  quote  this  unjust  passage.  In 
1867  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  education  of  thou- 
sands of  Englishmen  by  the  greatest  music  in  the 
world  may  not  have  made  great  progress  ;  but  even 
at  that  time  Ruskin,  if  he  had  looked,  might  have 
seen  multitudes  of  people  studying  music  neither  for 
superstition  nor  for  sensuality;  the  citizens  at  the 
familiar  popular  concerts  were  then  beginning,  with 
the  most  willing  hearts  ever  brought  to  the  hearing  of 
good  music,  their  education  at  no  ignoble  hands.  The 
page  that  describes  a  stage-burlesque  of  that  day  (it 
would  only  need  to  be  made  more  contemptuous  for 
this)  is  written  with  such  strange  felicity  as  Ruskin 
uses  when,  with  much  feeling,  he  writes  lightly  : 

"  The  pantomime  was  Ali  Bada  and  the  Forty 
Thieves.  The  forty  thieves  were  girls.  The  forty 
thieves  had  forty  companions,  who  were  girls.  The 
forty  thieves  and  their  forty  companions  were  in  some 
way  mixed  up  with  about  four  hundred  and  forty 
fairies,  who  were  girls.  There  was  an  Oxford  and 
Cambridge,  in  which  the  Oxford  and  Cambridge  men 


iy8  JOHN    RUSK.IN 

were  girls.  .  .  .  Mingled  incongruously  with  these 
seraphic,  and  as  far  as  my  boyish  experience  extends, 
novel  elements  of  pantomime,  there  were  yet  some 
of  its  old  and  fast-expiring  elements.  There  were,  in 
speciality,  two  thoroughly  good  pantomime  actors, 
Mr.  W.  H.  Payne  and  Mr.  Frederick  Payne.  .  .  . 
There  were  two  subordinate  actors,  who  played,  sub- 
ordinately  well,  the  fore  and  hind  legs  of  a  donkey. 
And  there  was  a  little  actress,  of  whom  I  have  chiefly 
to  speak,  who  played  exquisitely  the  little  part  she  had 
to  play.  The  scene  in  which  she  appeared  was 
.  .  .  the  house  scene,  in  which  Ali  Baba's  wife, 
on  washing  day,  is  called  upon  by  the  butcher,  baker, 
and  milkman,  with  unpaid  bills;  and  in  the  extremity 
of  her  distress  hears  her  husband's  knock  at  the  door 
and  opens  it  for  him  to  drive  in  his  donkey,  laden  with 
gold.  The  children  .  .  .  presently  share  in  the 
rapture  of  their  father  and  mother ;  and  the  little  lady 
I  spoke  of — eight  or  nine  years  old — dances  a  pas  de 
deux  with  the  donkey.  She  did  it  beautifully  and 
simply,  as  a  child  ought  to  dance.  She  was  not  an 
infant  prodigy ;  there  was  no  evidence,  in  the  finish 
or  strength  of  her  motion,  that  she  had  been  put  to 
continual  torture  through  half  her  eight  or  nine  years. 
She  did  nothing  more  than  any  child,  well  taught,  but 
painlessly,  might  easily  do.  She  caricatured  no  older 
person — attempted  no  curious  or  fantastic  skill.  She 
was  dressed  decently — she  moved  decently — she  looked 
and  behaved  innocently — and  she  danced  her  joyful 
dance  with  perfect  grace,  spirit,  sweetness,  and  self- 
forget  fulness.  And  through  all  the  vast  theatre,  full 
of  English  fathers  and  mothers  and  children,  there  was 
not  one  hand  lifted  to  give  her  sign  of  praise  but  mine. 
Presently  after  this  came  on  the  forty  thieves,  who,  as 
I  told  you,  were  girls ;  and,  there  being  no  thieving 
to  be  presently  done,  and  time  hanging  heavy  on  their 
hands,  arms,  and  legs,  the  forty  thief-girls  proceeded 


"TIME  AND  TIDE  BY  WEARE  AND  TYNE"  179 

to  light  forty  cigars,  whereupon  the  British  public  give 
them  a  round  of  applause.  Whereupon  I  fell  a-think- 
ing  ;  and  saw  little  more  of  the  piece,  except  as  an 
ugly  and  disturbing  dream." 

I  recur  elsewhere  to  the  saddest  page  Ruskin  ever 
wrote  (and  perhaps  in  writing  it  he  did  not  think  how 
some  few  of  his  readers  would  share  with  him  its  last 
bitterness)  wherein  he  avers  that  he  has  at  last  learnt 
to  be  cheerful  and  to  rest  in  spite  of  the  starving  and 
dying  of  the  forlorn,  and  notwithstanding  the  disre- 
gard with  which  the  world  had  let  go  by  his  courageous 
plan  of  succour.  But  in  1867  there  was  no  such 
despair,  but  much  distress  and  desire,  in  that  generous 
heart.  He  still  thought  that  there  were  many  who 
would  defer  the  arts,  the  muses,  the  luxuries,  the 
graces  of  civilization,  the  tasks  of  intellect,  and  the 
accomplishment  of  nations,  until  a  rescue  had  been 
made  of  the  poor.  At  the  time  of  writing  Time  and 
Tide  the  author  had  the  large  desire  of  saving  the 
labouring  classes  from  what  Antiquity  and  the  modern 
world  alike  have  held  to  be  the  misfortune  and  servi- 
tude of  labour.  But  he  found  himself,  needless  to 
say,  with  the  unvanquished  difficulty  of  the  necessity 
of  some  such  servitude.  With  a  laugh  he  asks  the 
professors  of  Evangelical  Christianity — especially  the 
ministers — whether  they  will  not  purchase  their  own 
proclaimed  eternal  reward  by  taking  upon  themselves 
the  disgrace  of  the  unattractive  offices.  There  seems 
no  other  way  to  fill  them  in  the  nation  as  he  would 
reconstruct  it.  He  sets  about  the  work  of  reconstruc- 
tion ingeniously,  with  wisdom,  and  like  a  child : 


l8o  JOHN    RUSKIN 

"You  say  that  many  a  boy  runs  away  .  .  . 
from  good  positions  to  go  to  sea.  Of  course  he  does. 
I  never  said  I  should  have  any  difficulty  in  finding 
sailors,  but  that  I  shall  in  finding  fishmongers.  I  am 
not  at  a  loss  for  gardeners  either,  but  what  am  I  to  do 
for  greengrocers  ? " 

It  is  chiefly  to  serve  the  study  of  profits,  fair  and 
unfair,  that  Time  and  Tide  was  written  ;  but  amongst 
its  many  other  purposes  was  that  reunion  of  art  and 
handicraft  for  which  Ruskin  worked  in  those  days 
alone,  and  to  further  which,  as  also  to  rebuke  luxury, 
he  wrote : 

"  Labour  without  joy  is  base.  Labour  without  sor- 
row is  base.  Sorrow  without  labour  is  base.  Joy 
without  labour  is  base." 


CHAPTER  XVII 
"THE  QUEEN  OF  THE  AIR"  (1869) 

RUSKIN  called  this  book  a  study  of  the  Greek  myths 
of  cloud  and  storm,  but  no  more  than  a  prefatory 
study — a  collection  of  "  desultory  memoranda  on  a 
most  noble  subject."  The  myth  of  Athena,  his 
Queen  of  the  Air,  he  names  one  of  "the  great 
myths,"  or  those  as  to  which  it  is  of  small  importance 
"  what  wild  hunter  dreamed,  or  what  childish  race  first 
dreaded  it,"  because  one  thing  is  certain — that  a 
"  strong  people  "  lived  by  it.  The  myth  of  St.  George 
is  of  the  same  influential  and  significant  kind.  But 
this  Queen  of  the  Air  is  queen  also  of  the  breathing 
creatures  of  earth,  queen  of  human  breath,  and  of  the 
moral  health  and  "  habitual  wisdom "  of  the  unaf- 
frighted  Grecian  heart.  Queen  of  the  blue  air,  first 
of  all ;  and  in  the  Introduction  Ruskin  appeals  once 
more  to  a  world  busied  upon  the  defilement  of  so 
much  of  the  celestial  blue,  but  at  that  moment  greatly 
interested  in  Professor  Tyndall's  discovery  of  the 
cause  of  the  colour  of  the  sky — researches  for  which 
Ruskin  thanks  the  professor,  with  a  gentle  apology  for 
any  words  of  his  that  had  seemed  to  fail  in  respect  for 
the  powers  of  thought  of  the  masters  of  modern 
physical  science. 

"This  first  day  of  May,  1869,  I  am  writing  where 

181 


l82  JOHN    RUSKIN 

my  work  was  begun  thirty-five  years  ago, — within 
sight  of  the  snows  of  the  higher  Alps.  In  that  half 
of  the  permitted  life  of  man,  I  have  seen  strange  evil 
brought  upon  every  scene  that  I  best  loved.  .  .  . 
The  light  that  once  flushed  those  pale  summits  with 
its  rose  at  dawn,  and  purple  at  sunset,  is  now  umbered 
and  faint ;  the  air  which  once  inlaid  the  clefts  of  all 
their  golden  crags  with  azure  is  now  defiled  with 
languid  coils  of  smoke ;  .  .  .  the  waters  that 
once  sank  at  their  feet  into  crystalline  rest  are  now 
dimmed  and  foul." 

Is  there  any  reader  inclined  to  take  this  for  a  light 
grief?  I  protest  that  it  is  a  heavy  one. 

The  Athena  of  the  clear  heavens  was  the  theme 
of  the  greatest  myth  in  that  central  time — about  500 
B.  c. — which  held  more  explicitly  and  with  fuller 
consciousness  the  early  religion  of  the  Homeric  day. 

"  The  Homeric  poems  .  .  .  are  not  conceived 
didactically,  but  are  didactic  in  their  essence,  as  all 
good  art  is.  There  is  an  increasing  insensibility  to 
this  character,  and  even  an  open  denial  of  it,  among 
us,  now,  which  is  one  of  the  most  curious  errors  of 
modernism, — the  peculiar  and  judicial  blindness  of  an 
age  which,  having  long  practiced  art  and  poetry  for 
the  sake  of  pleasure  only,  has  become  incapable  of 
reading  their  language  when  they  were  both  didactic : 
and  also,  having  been  itself  accustomed  to  a  profess- 
edly didactic  teaching  which  yet,  for  private  interests, 
studiously  avoids  collision  with  every  prevalent  vice 
of  its  day  (and  especially  with  avarice),  has  become 
equally  dead  to  the  intensely  ethical  conceptions  of  a 
race  which  habitually  divided  all  men  into  two  broad 
classes  of  worthy  or  worthless  ; — good,  and  good  for 
nothing." 


"THE  QUEEN  OF  THE  AIR"  183 

Ruskin  would  teach  this  Greek  spirit  again  to  a 
world  that  had  boasted  of  denying  it ;  but  before  the 
formative  and  decisive  spirit  of  Athena  is  shown 
centred  in  the  heart  and  work  of  men,  Ruskin  studies 
it  "  in  the  heavens,"  and  "  in  the  earth."  Athena 
represents  "  all  cloud,  and  rain,  and  dew,  and  dark- 
ness, and  peace,  and  wrath  of  heaven."  She  repre- 
sents the  vegetative  power  of  the  earth,  the  motion 
of  sea  and  of  ships,  the  vibration  of  sound.  To  her 
great  myth,  therefore,  Ruskin  devotes  a  beautiful  page 
regarding  flowers,  a  doubtful  page  regarding  music, 
and  one  of  great  vigour  regarding  the  strength  that  is 
rather  in  breath  than  muscle — the  young  strength  in 
war,  wherewith  Athena  filled  the  breast  of  Achilles 
when  "  She  leaped  down  out  of  heaven  like  a  harpy 
falcon,  shrill-voiced."  And  this  follows,  on  the  crea- 
ture that  lives  and  moves  by  air — the  bird : 

"  It  is  little  more  than  a  drift  of  the  air  brought 
into  form  by  plumes ;  the  air  is  in  all  its  quills,  it 
breathes  through  its  whole  frame  and  flesh,  and  glows 
with  air  in  its  flying,  like  a  blown  flame :  it  rests 
upon  the  air,  subdues  it,  surpasses  it,  outraces  it ; — it 
is  the  air,  conscious  of  itself,  conquering  itself,  ruling 
itself." 

The  voice  of  Athena's  air  is  in  the  bird's  throat : 

"As  we  may  imagine  the  wild  form  of  the  cloud 
closed  into  the  perfect  form  of  the  bird's  wings,  so 
the  wild  voice  of  the  cloud  into  its  ordered  and  com- 
manded voice.  .  .  .  Also  upon  the  plumes  of 
the  bird  are  put  the  colours  of  the  air :  on  these  the 
gold  of  the  cloud,  that  cannot  be  gathered  by  covet- 


184  JOHN    RUSK.IN 

ousness ;  the  rubies  of  the  clouds,  that  are  not  the 
price  of  Athena,  but  are  Athena ;  the  vermilion  of 
the  cloud-bar  and  the  flame  of  the  cloud-crest,  and  the 
snow  of  the  cloud,  and  its  shadow,  and  the  melted 
blue  of  the  deep  wells  of  the  sky." 

As  the  bird  has  most  of  the  life  of  air,  the  serpent 
has  least ;  and  the  serpent  is  one  of  the  dark  sayings 
of  nature — the  invariable  living  hieroglyph,  worth  the 
reading. 

"  Athena  in  the  Heart "  is  rather  a  reading  by  in- 
sight of  the  Greek  mind  than  a  tracing  of  Greek  rec- 
ords. Ruskin  has  sought  that  mind  "through  the 
imperfection,  and  alas !  more  dimly  yet,  through  the 
triumphs,  of  formative  art."  He  finds  Athena  in  that 
early  creative  power — we  may  name  it  the  mother  of 
art  that  dies  in  childbirth. 

"  It  is  as  vain  an  attempt  to  reason  out  the  vision- 
ary power  or  guiding  influence  of  Athena  in  the 
Greek  heart,  from  anything  we  now  read,  or  possess, 
of  the  work  of  Phidias,  as  it  would  be  for  the  disciples 
of  some  new  religion  to  infer  the  spirit  of  Christianity 
from  Titian's  l  Assumption.' ' 

But  in  the  days  of  art,  Athena  teaches  "  Tightness." 
Every  reader  of  Ruskin  knows  well  what  he  means 
by  this.  Rightness  is  in  the  nature  of  the  workman 
— his  spirit  and  his  style. 

"  If  stone-work  is  well  put  together,  it  means  that 
a  thoughtful  man  planned  it,  and  a  careful  man  cut  it. 
.  .  .  A  man  may  hide  himself  from  you,  or  mis- 
represent himself  to  you,  every  other  way ;  but  he 


"THE  QUEEN  OF  THE  AIR"  185 

cannot  in  his  work :  there,  be  sure,  you  have  him  to 
the  inmost." 

The  command  of  Athena  which  is  the  command 
of  Tightness  antecedent  to  beauty  is  spoken  thus : 

"'Be  well  exercised,  and  rightly  clothed.  Clothed, 
and  in  your  right  minds ;  not  insane  and  in  rags,  nor 
in  soiled  fine  clothes  clutched  from  each  other's 
shoulders.  Fight  and  weave.  Then  I  myself  will 
answer  for  the  course  of  the  lance,  and  the  colours 
of  the  loom.'  " 

Ruskin  renews,  upon  this  text,  his  warning  to  a 
society  that  sets  machines  to  fight  and  weave  whilst 
men  are  obliged  to  stand  idle.  All  vital  power,  he 
holds,  should  be  employed  first,  natural  mechanical 
force  secondly,  and  artificially  produced  mechanical 
force  only  in  the  third  place.  "We  waste  our  coal, 
and  spoil  our  humanity,  at  one  and  the  same  time." 
Athena,  finally,  represents  restraint : 

"  No  one  ever  gets  wiser  by  doing  wrong,  nor 
stronger.  You  will  get  wiser  and  stronger  only  by 
doing  right.  .  .  .  l  What ! '  a  wayward  youth 
might  perhaps  answer  .  .  .  4  Shall  I  not  know 
the  world  best  by  trying  the  wrong  of  it,  and  repent- 
ing ?  '  .  .  .  Your  liberty  of  choice  has  simply 
destroyed  for  you  so  much  life  and  strength,  never 
regainable.  It  is  true  you  now  know  the  habits  of 
swine,  and  the  taste  of  husks :  do  you  think  your 
father  could  not  have  taught  you  to  know  better 
habits  and  pleasanter  tastes  ?  " 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
"LECTURES  ON  ART"  (1870) 

THE  first  course  of  Slade  Lectures  begins  with 
some  formality  and  a  sense  of  the  novelty  and  solem- 
nity of  the  lecturer's  office.  The  first  of  the  six  goes 
to  the  beginning  of  things,  and  has  this  sharp  phrase 
on  education :  it  is  "  not  the  equaliser,  but  the  dis- 
coverer, of  men,"  and, 

"  So  far  from  being  instruments  for  the  collection 
of  riches,  the  first  lesson  of  wisdom  is  to  disdain 
them,  and  of  gentleness,  to  diffuse." 

The  technical  education  proposed  by  Ruskin  is  not 
to  enable  a  man  here  and  there  to  extricate  himself 
from  a  crowd  "  confessed  to  be  in  evil  case,"  but  to 
make  the  case  of  the  crowd  more  honourable.  Art 
may  be  mingled  with  their  toil,  but  on  this  point  a 
modest  expectation  is  proposed.  Let  us  not  hope, 
says  Ruskin  in  1870,  to  excel — not  even  in  the 
merest  decoration. 

u  No  nation  ever  had,  or  will  have,  the  power  of 
suddenly  developing,  under  the  pressure  of  necessity, 
faculties  it  had  neglected  when  it  was  at  ease." 

He  closes  against  his  countrymen  "  the  highest  fields 
of  ideal  art,"   but    strangely   confounds  himself  and 
voids  his  own   argument  when  he  closes  those  fields 
1 86 


"LECTURES  ON  ART"  187 

of  art  for  reasons  that  would  avail  equally  to  shut  the 
gates  of  "  the  highest  fields  "  of  ideal  literature.  He 
finds  in  the  English  genius  (and  so  proper  thereto  that 
the  lack,  in  an  Englishman,  implies  some  failure  or 
weakness)  a  pleasure  in  the  grotesque,  and  a  tolerance 
of  certain  gross  forms  of  evil.  Let  us  grant  to  Ruskin 
that  it  is  there  ;  we  would  go  further  and  grant  to  him 
that  because  of  it  Englishmen  cannot  be  the  greatest 
painters,  if  that  concession  did  not  bind  us  to  the 
absurdity  that  because  of  it  Englishmen  cannot  be 
the  greatest  writers.  As  it  is,  the  theory  cannot  stand. 
Judged  by  comparison  with  Dante,  we  may  be,  if 
Ruskin  will,  a  coarse  nation ;  but  in  that  case  a  coarse 
nation  owns  one  name  certainly  greater  than  Dante's. 
Surely  because  of  his  terrible  custom  of  referring  the 
human  spirit  to  Dante,  and  of  testing  human  char- 
acter by  the  rule  of  Dante's,  does  Ruskin  commit  this 
outrage. 

He  offers  his  countrymen  some  comfort ;  if  they 
cannot  paint  the  greatest  pictures,  they  can,  in  the 
persons  of  Reynolds  and  Gainsborough,  paint  portraits 
insuperably  good  (but  in  the  second  lecture  he  says, 
"  The  highest  that  art  can  do  is  to  set  before  you  the 
true  image  of  the  presence  of  a  noble  human  being  ") ; 
they  can  love  and  study  landscape  by  the  very  fact  that 
they  are  unhappily  a  city  folk,  whereas  the  peasant 
cares  little  for  natural  beauty ;  and  they  have  a  national 
sympathy  with  animals  ;  let  them  improve  it  and  learn 
to  draw  birds  rather  than  shoot  them.  And  there 
follows  a  beautiful  passage  on  the  inheritance  of  a 
love  of  beauty  : 


l88  JOHN    RUSKIN 

"  In  the  children  of  noble  races,  trained  by  sur- 
rounding art,  and  at  the  same  time  in  the  practice 
of  great  deeds,  there  is  an  intense  delight  in  the  land- 
scape of  their  country,  as  memorial ;  a  sense  not  taught 
to  them,  nor  teachable  to  any  others ;  but,  in  them, 
innate ;  and  the  seal  and  reward  of  persistence  in  great 
national  life ; — the  obedience  and  the  peace  of  ages 
having  extended  gradually  the  glory  of  the  revered 
ancestors  also  to  the  ancestral  land ;  until  the  Mother- 
hood of  the  dust,  the  mystery  of  the  Demeter  from 
whose  bosom  we  came,  and  to  whose  bosom  we  return, 
surrounds  and  inspires,  everywhere,  the  local  awe  of 
field  and  fountain." 

The  students,  discouraged,  one  must  suppose,  by  the 
inaugural  lecture,  were  instructed,  in  the  second,  on 
"  The  Relation  of  Art  to  Religion." 

"  The  phenomena  of  imagination  .  .  .  are  the 
result  of  the  influence  of  the  common  and  vital,  but 
not,  therefore,  less  Divine,  spirit,  of  which  some  por- 
tion is  given  to  all  living  creatures  in  such  manner  as 
may  be  adapted  to  their  rank  in  creation  ;  .  .  .  and 
everything  which  men  rightly  accomplish  is  indeed 
done  by  Divine  help,  but  under  a  consistent  law  which 
is  never  departed  from." 

"  The  Relation  of  Art  to  Morals  "  is  the  subject  of  a 
lecture  contrasting  once  more  the  thought  of  Antiquity 
and  of  the  modern  world.  It  seems  to  the  careful 
reader  that  if  Ruskin  tests  art  by  morality,  he  also 
tests  morality  by  art.  One  page  of  this  lecture  puts 
life  to  the  touch  with  a  trial  like  that  of  Mr.  Meredith's 
test  in  The  Empty  Purse  : 

"  Is  it  accepted  of  song  ?  " 


"LECTURES  ON  ART"  189 

"  No  art-teaching,"  says  Ruskin  in  the  same  lecture, 
"  could  be  of  use  to  you,  but  would  rather  be  harmful, 
unless  it  was  grafted  on  something  deeper  than  all  art." 
But  we  have  heard  him  say  elsewhere  that  taste  is  the 
only  morality — that  is  to  say,  what  a  man  loves  is  his 
spiritual  life.  Whichever  of  these  two  answers  for  the 
other — whether  morality  for  such  art  as  it  is  able  to 
teach,  or  art  for  such  morality  as  it  is  able  to  teach — 
by  neither,  nor  by  both,  in  those  elementary  measures, 
are  men  led  many  paces  on  the  way  they  must  walk. 
The  fact  of  morality  may  be  established  by  art,  but  the 
code  of  morality  whereby  we  have  to  control  our  actions 
and  to  constrain  ourselves  has  that  fact  as  its  starting 
point,  and  does  its  effectual  work  further  on.  Ruskin, 
however,  seems  to  hold  that  a  working  morality  is  to  be 
found  in  the  decisions  of  art.  Leaving  these  polemics, 
the  reader  stops  with  full  assent  upon  this  incidental 
judgment  of  language  and  literature : 

"  The  chief  vices  of  education  have  arisen  from  the 
one  great  fallacy  of  supposing  that  noble  language  is  a 
communicable  trick  of  grammar  and  accent,  instead 
of  simply  the  careful  expression  of  right  thought." 

It  is  certainly  not  a  communicable  trick,  but  neither 
is  it  a  communicable  virtue.  The  following  is  one  of 
the  finest  of  many  passages  condemning  modern  con- 
ditions : 

"  Great  obscurity  .  .  .  has  been  brought  upon 
the  truth  ...  by  the  want  of  integrity  and  sim- 
plicity in  our  modern  life.  Everything  is  broken  up, 
.  .  .  besides  being  in  great  part  imitative  j  so  that 


JOHN    RUSKIN 

you  not  only  cannot  tell  what  a  man  is,  but  sometimes 
you  cannot  tell  whether  he  /V,  at  all." 

Amongst  other  things  we  fail  in  is  anger  when  it 
is  due;  Ruskin  will  not  away  with  our  non-vindictive 
justice,  which,  having  convicted  a  man  of  a  crime 
worthy  of  death,  entirely  pardons  the  criminal,  restores 
him  to  honour  and  esteem,  and  then  hangs  him ;  "  not 
as  a  malefactor,  but  as  a  scarecrow." 

"  That  is  the  theory.  And  the  practice  is,  that  we 
send  a  child  to  prison  for  a  month  for  stealing  a  hand- 
ful of  walnuts,  for  fear  that  other  children  should 
come  to  steal  more  of  our  walnuts.  And  we  do  not 
punish  a  swindler  for  ruining  a  thousand  families,  be- 
cause we  think  swindling  a  wholesome  excitement  to 
trade." 

Ruskin  will  have  justice  to  be  vindictive  and  pun- 
ishment retributive. 

In  "  The  Relation  of  Art  to  Use,"  we  read,  "  The 
entire  vitality  of  art  depends  upon  its  being  either  full 
of  truth  or  full  of  use."  It  is  "  either  to  state  a  true 
thing  or  to  adorn  a  serviceable  one.  It  must  never 
exist  alone — never  for  itself."  The  very  commonplace 
of  later,  but  not  latest,  opinion  is  to  the  contrary.  I 
confess  that  "  to  state  a  true  thing  "  is  a  definition  of 
purpose  against  which  there  may  be  some  rebellion  even 
in  a  mind  never  subject  to  the  fashion  of  a  now  depart- 
ing day.  Here,  as  before,  such  a  mind  may  appeal, 
against  Ruskin's  phrase,  to  the  separate  art  of  music. 
"To  make  a  beautiful  thing  "  is  not,  however,  a  suf- 
ficient amendment  of  that  phrase,  in  as  much  as  u  the 


"LECTURES  ON  ART"  191 

formation  of  an  actually  beautiful  thing  "  is  involved 
by  Ruskin  in  the  act  of  art.  One  thing  is  certain — 
that  it  is  not  by  way  of  dishonour  to  art  that  he  would 
have  art  subservient,  but  for  the  advantage  of  its  es- 
sential vitality  and  of  its  particular  skill.  Of  vitality 
he  is  the  best  judge  in  the  world.  Of  human  skill 
he  charges  the  whole  world  of  these  three  hundred 
years  past  with  taking  not  too  much  but  too  little 
heed. 

"  We  have  lost  our  delight  in  Skill ;  in  that  majesty 
of  it  .  .  .  which  long  ago  I  tried  to  express, 
under  the  head  of  c  ideas  of  power.'  .  .  .  All 
the  joy  and  reverence  we  ought  to  feel  in  looking  at 
a  strong  man's  work  have  ceased  in  us.  We  keep 
them  yet  a  little  in  looking  at  a  honeycomb  or  a  bird's 
nest;  we  understand  that  these  differ,  by  divinity  of 
skill,  from  a  lump  of  wax  or  a  cluster  of  sticks." 

It  is  in  the  lecture  on  the  relation  of  art  to  use, 
moreover,  that  the  reader  finds  this  splendid  passage 
on  Reynolds : 

"He  rejoices  in  showing  you  his  skill;  and  those 
of  you  who  succeed  in  learning  what  painter's  work 
really  is,  will  one  day  rejoice  also,  even  to  laughter — 
that  highest  laughter  which  springs  of  pure  delight, 
in  watching  the  fortitude  and  fire  of  a  hand  which 
strikes  forth  its  will  upon  the  canvas  as  easily  as  the 
wind  strikes  it  on  the  sea.  He  rejoices  in  all 
abstract  beauty  and  rhythm  and  melody  of  design." 

But  the  beauty  is  to  serve  by  likeness  to  nature. 
This  "  likeness  "  seems  to  be  rather  a  strain  of  the 
idea  of  "  use."  And  in  fact  to  prove  this  curious 


JOHN    RUSKIN 

contention  Ruskin  is  obliged  to  place  portrait  at  a 
height,  as  has  already  been  said,  that  he  had  seemed  to 
deny  it.  But  in  the  course  of  this  argument  is  a 
brilliant  page  on  the  cause  of  the  dishonour  of  por- 
traiture in  Greek  art : 

"  The  progressive  course  of  Greek  art  was  in  sub- 
duing monstrous  conceptions  to  natural  ones ;  it  did 
this  by  general  laws ;  it  reached  absolute  truth  of 
generic  human  form,  and  if  this  ethical  force  had 
remained,  would  have  advanced  into  healthy  portrait- 
ure. But  at  the  moment  of  change  the  national  life 
ended  in  Greece ;  and  portraiture,  there,  meant  insult 
to  her  religion,  and  flattery  to  her  tyrants.  And  her 
skill  perished,  not  because  she  became  true  in  sight, 
but  because  she  became  vile  in  heart." 

But  these  moralities  and  portraitures  are  but  obscure 
glories  of  art  in  use  (as  to  which  the  reader  may  be 
half-convinced,  or  may  hold  that  they  are  concerned 
rather  with  the  sense  of  words  than  with  principles 
of  art)  compared  with  the  kinds  of  plain  and  obvious 
utility  to  which,  in  the  beginning  of  this  course,  as 
in  the  pamphlet  on  Prt-RaJ>baeIitismy  Ruskin  com- 
mends the  services  of  painters  : 

"  What  we  especially  need  at  present  for  educational 
purposes  is  to  know,  not  the  anatomy  of  plants,  but 
their  biography — how  and  where  they  live  and  die, 
their  tempers,  benevolences,  malignities,  distresses,  and 
virtues.  We  want  them  drawn  from  their  youth  to 
their  age,  from  bud  to  fruit.  .  .  .  And  all  this 
we  ought  to  have  drawn  so  accurately  that  we  might 
at  once  compare  any  given  part  of  a  plant  with  the 
same  part  of  any  other,  drawn  on  the  like  conditions. 


"LECTURES  ON  ART"  193 

Now,  is  not  this  a  work  which  we  may  set  about 
here  in  Oxford,  with  good  hope  and  much  pleas- 
ure ? " 

Not  many  thought  so,  it  is  said.  The  professor's 
classes  were  not  well  attended.  He  went  on  to  sug- 
gest that  geology  should  be  served,  as  well  as  botany, 
and  urged  his  art  students  to  the  study  of  the  cleav- 
age-lines of  the  smallest  fragments  of  rock.  To  the 
rescue  of  topography,  and  zoology,  and  history  they 
might  go  too  : 

"  The  feudal  and  monastic  buildings  of  Europe, 
and  still  more  the  streets  of  her  ancient  cities,  are 
vanishing  like  dreams ;  and  it  is  difficult  to  imagine 
the  mingled  envy  and  contempt  with  which  future 
generations  will  look  back  to  us,  who  still  possessed 
such  things,  yet  made  no  effort  to  preserve,  and 
scarcely  any  to  delineate  them  ;  for,  when  used  as 
material  of  landscape  by  the  modern  artist,  they  are 
nearly  always  superficially  or  flatteringly  represented, 
without  zeal  enough  to  penetrate  their  character,  or 
patience  enough  to  render  it  in  modest  harmony." 

Ruskin  appeals  to  those  professing  to  love  art  that 
they  would  labour  to  "  get  the  country  clean  and  the 
people  lovely,"  to  rescue  young  creatures  from  miser- 
able toil  and  deadly  shade,  to  dress  them  better,  to 
lodge  them  more  fitly,  to  restore  the  handicrafts  to 
dignity  and  simplicity.  But  the  reform  of  outward 
conditions  must  come  first,  and  Ruskin  thought  that 
art  could  hardly  flourish 

"In  any  country  where  the  cities  are  thus  built,  or 
thus,  let  me  rather  say,  clotted  and  coagulated  j  spots 


194  JOHN    RUSK.IN 

of  dreadful  mildew  spreading  by  patches  and  blotches 
over  the  country  they  consume." 

It  is  a  repetition  of  the  old  contention,  made  doubtful 
by  history  as  Ruskin  himself  tells  it ;  for  whenever 
art  has  begun  to  decay  it  has  been  surrounded,  in  that 
hour,  by  fulness  of  beauty. 

The  fourth  lecture  is  a  practical  lesson  on  "  Line  " 
— that  outline  which  is  "  infinitely  subtle ;  not  even 
a  line,  but  the  place  of  a  line,  and  that,  also,  made 
soft  by  texture."  The  linear  arts  are  the  earliest,  and 
they  divide  principally  into  the  Greek  (line  with  light) 
and  the  Gothic  (line  with  colour).  Ruskin  shows 
how  these  arts  began  to  cease  to  depend  upon  line,  and 
learnt  to  represent  masses,  and  how  from  them  were 
derived 

"  Two  vast  mediaeval  schools ;  one  of  flat  and  infi- 
nitely varied  colour,  with  exquisite  character  and  senti- 
ment added,  .  .  .  but  little  perception  of  shadow ; 
the  other,  of  light  and  shade,  with  exquisite  drawing 
of  solid  form,  and  little  perception  of  colour ;  some- 
times as  little  of  sentiment." 

According  to  Ruskin,  the  schools  of  colour  en- 
riched themselves  by  adopting  from  the  schools  of 
light  and  shadow  "  whatever  was  compatible  with 
their  own  power."  The  schools  of  light  and  shadow, 
on  the  other  hand,  were  too  haughty  and  too  weak  to 
learn  much  from  the  schools  of  colour.  To  them  is 
chiefly  due  the  decadence  of  art.  "  In  their  fall  they 
dragged  the  schools  of  colour  down  with  them." 
Returning  to  the  study  of  line,  Ruskin  recommends 


"LECTURES  ON  ART"  195 

severity  in  drawing  as  a  first  aim,  rather  than  the 
finished  studies  of  light  and  shade  practised  in  some 
of  our  classes.  In  the  following  lecture,  on  "  Light," 
and  in  the  last,  on  "  Colour,"  he  insists  further  upon 
the  happiness  and  peace  of  the  art  of  colour,  and 
upon  the  oppression  and  mortality  of  the  art  of 
chiaroscuro — the  art  that  sought  light  and  found 
darkness  also,  and  loved  form  and  found  formlessness. 

"  The  school  of  light  is  founded  in  the  Doric  wor- 
ship of  Apollo  and  the  Ionic  worship  of  Athena,  as 
the  spirits  of  life  in  the  light,  and  of  light  in  the  air, 
opposed  each  to  their  own  contrary  deity  of  death — 
Apollo  to  the  Python,  Athena  to  the  Gorgon — Apollo 
as  life  in  light,  to  the  earth  spirit  of  corruption  in 
darkness,  Athena  as  life  by  motion,  to  the  Gorgon 
spirit  of  death  by  pause,  freezing,  or  turning  to  stone  ; 
both  of  the  great  divinities  taking  their  glory  from  the 
evil  they  have  conquered  ;  both  of  them,  when  angry, 
taking  to  men  the  form  of  the  evil  which  is  their  op- 
posite. .  .  .  But  underlying  both  these,  and  far 
more  mysterious,  dreadful,  and  yet  beautiful,  there  is 
the  Greek  conception  of  spiritual  darkness ;  of  the 
anger  of  fate,  whether  foredoomed  or  avenging." 

Ruskin  then  takes  us  through  the  allegory  (not  the 
representation)  of  light  in  the  Greek  vase-paintings, 
and  closes  his  history  of  light  with  the  illumination 
of  the  work  of  Turner.  To  the  student  it  must  seem 
somewhat  fantastic  to  call  the  schools  of  light  and 
shadow  Greek,  for  the  sake  of  those  allegories  of  light 
in  Greek  art — to  call,  for  example,  the  northern  spirit 
of  the  "  Melancholia  "  and  "  The  Knight  and  Death  " 
Greek.  But  the  student  of  Ruskin  will  retain,  at  any 


196  JOHN    RUSKIN 

rate,  the  fact  that  he  holds  the  colour-schools — the 
Gothic — to  be  the  more  vital,  and  the  chiaroscuro 
schools,  albeit  noble  in  noble  masters,  to  be  subject  to 
derogation  in  "  licentious  and  vulgar  forms  of  art " 
having  no  parallel  amongst  the  colourists.  Inciden- 
tally I  must  avow  that  amongst  the  griefs  that  a  reader 
of  Ruskin  has  to  swallow  is  the  contempt  of  reflected 
lights  that  is  but  the  outcome  of  his  suspicion  and 
distrust  of  the  schools  of  light  and  shadow.  He  bids 
his  classes  to  make  little  inquiry  into  reflected  lights : 

"  Nearly  all  young  students  (and  too  many  advanced 
masters')  exaggerate  them.  ...  In  vulgar  chiaro- 
scuro the  shades  are  so  full  of  reflection  that  they 
look  as  if  some  one  had  been  walking  round  the  ob- 
ject with  a  candle,  and  the  students,  by  that  help, 
peering  into  its  crannies." 

Ruskin  never  really  loved  the  landscape  of  the 
south.  In  a  letter  (I  think  to  Miss  Siddal)  he  agrees 
with  her  that  the  Mediterranean  coast  lacks  beauty 
because  it  is  too  pale.  Now,  that  paleness  is  due  to 
the  reflected  light  in  shadow  which  is  the  loveliest 
secret  of  the  southern  summer,  and  the  surprise  of  the 
East ;  a  secret  and  a  surprise  (although  it  makes  all 
inner  places  tenderly  bright),  because  the  traveller  ex- 
pects, on  the  contrary,  that  shadows  shall  be  dark  in 
a  bright  sun,  and  often  expects  black  shadows  so  posi- 
tively that  he  goes  further,  and  describes  them. 

Ruskin  here,  as  elsewhere,  recommends  the  student 
not  to  disregard  local  colour  even  in  studies  of  form — 
not  to  ignore  the  leopard's  spots  for  the  sake  of  the 


"LECTURES  ON  ART"  197 

lights  or  darks  that  are  to  aid  in  showing  its  anatomy. 
He  would  have  the  artist "  to  consider  all  nature  merely 
as  a  mosaic  of  different  colours,  to  be  imitated  one  by 
one,  in  simplicity."  In  teaching  the  practice  of  the 
colourist  painters  he  insists  that "  shadows  are  as  much 
colours  as  lights  are  "  j  and  that  "  whoever  represents 
them  by  merely  the  subdued  or  darkened  tint  of  the 
light,  represents  them  falsely."  In  Modern  Painters 
Cuyp  and  others  seemed  to  be  rebuked  for  the  sep- 
arate colour  of  their  shadows;  we  must  understand 
false  separate  colour,  no  doubt ;  in  any  case  we  may 
settle  our  difficulties  of  theory  by  referring  to  the 
Venetian  practice,  which  Ruskin  pronounces  to  be 
right,  and  right  in  all  periods.  In  1870  Ruskin  had 
perhaps  already  begun  to  repent  of  that  Renaissance 
wherewith  I  venture  to  charge  him  in  the  chapter  on 
St.  Mark's  Rest ;  and  amongst  those  periods  of  Ve- 
netian "  Tightness,"  he  was  inclining  to  the  tranquil  and 
undazzled  cheerfulness  of  the  earlier  colourists. 
"  None  of  their  lights  are  flashing,  .  .  .  they 
are  soft,  winning,  precious ;  only,  you  know,  on  this 
condition  they  cannot  have  sunshine."  In  our  eyes 
to-day  the  attaining  to  sunshine  is  worth  the  sacrifice 
of  every  lesser  "  cheerfulness,"  and  of  colour  itself. 
And  Titian  and  Tintoretto  themselves  thought  so,  and 
Ruskin  himself  must  have  thought  so  when  he  was  at 
the  height  of  his  love  for  them,  and  for  Turner. 
Even  in  1870  he  writes,  nobly  : 

"  We  do  not  live  in  the  inside  of  a  pearl ;  but  in 
an  atmosphere  through  which  a  burning  sun  shines 
thwartedly,  and  over  which  a  sorrowful  night  must  far 


198  JOHN    RUSKIN 

prevail.  .  .  .  There  is  mystery  in  the  day  as  in 
the  night." 

Writing  thus,  he  had  not  yet  given  his  heart  to  the 
unmysterious  allegory  of  early  art.  But  how  strange 
an  injustice  he  could  do  at  this  time,  and  perhaps  at 
all  times,  to  that  divine  creation,  "  artificial "  light, 
may  be  seen  from  this.  The  noble  men,  he  says,  of 
the  sixteenth  century  learn  their  lesson  from  the 
schools  of  chiaroscuro  nobly ;  the  base  men  learn  it 
basely. 

"  The  great  men  rise  from  colour  to  sunlight.  The 
base  ones  fall  from  colour  to  candlelight.  To-day 
4  non  ragioniam  di  lor.'  " 

What,  then,  about  Sir  Joshua  ?  As  for  the  much 
more  modern  art  which  studies  fire  in  daylight,  and 
that  which  is  dazzled  by  the  flashes  of  day,  they  do 
not  exist  for  Ruskin. 

Broadly,  he  names  the  Gothic  school  of  colour 
"  the  school  of  crystal "  (and  strangely,  too,  for  the 
colours  of  crystal  and  of  glass  are  colours  through 
which  light  comes,  and  are  surely  unlike  the  colours 
of  the  primitive  colour-schools)  ;  and  the  Greek  school 
of  light  he  names  "  the  school  of  clay  :  potter's  clay, 
and  human,  are  too  sorrowfully  the  same,  as  far  as  art 
is  concerned."  And  he  tells  his  classes  that  they 
must  choose  between  the  two,  and  cannot  belong  to 
both.  None  the  less  had  he  shown,  in  many  an  elab- 
orate lesson,  that  the  great  Venetians  had  joined  form 
and  light  to  their  colour,  and  that  they  did  belong  to 


"LECTURES  ON  ART"  199 

both.  And  it  is  another  surprise  to  find  him  declaring 
himself  "  wholly  "  a  chiaroscurist.  He  had  taught, 
in  these  same  lectures,  the  colourists  to  be  more 
"  vital,"  and  had  recommended  to  the  student  the 
"  mosaic  "  of  the  colour  of  nature  ;  he  had  disclaimed 
the  chiaroscurists  in  Modern  Painters,  and  in  the  later 
studies  of  Florentine  art  was  to  proclaim  himself  a 
colourist,  as  it  would  seem,  "  wholly."  If  there  is 
an  inconsistency,  it  is  perhaps  due  to  the  theoretic 
separation  of  things  long  joined  together;  but  the 
matter  is  full  of  difficulty  to  the  reader.  At  any  rate, 
Ruskin  must  needs  give  his  Turner  the  names  of  both 
schools.  And  having  a  living  imagination  for  the  art 
of  action  (indeed  what  imagination  ever  lived  so  fully 
as  his  ?)  he  insists  that  action  was,  according  to  the 
divisions  of  this  book,  "  Greek,"  not "  Gothic."  Yet 
here  again  what  contradictions,  when  we  call  to  mind 
the  action  and  flight  of  Gothic  architecture,  the  grow- 
ing plant  in  stone,  the  "  prickly  independence  "  of  the 
leaf  of  Gothic  sculpture,  and  the  repose  of  Grecian 
building ! 

The  lecture  closes  with  a  sombre  encouragement : 

"  You  live  in  an  age  of  base  conceit  and  baser  sur- 
vility — an  age  whose  intellect  is  chiefly  formed  by 
pillage,  and  occupied  in  desecration ;  one  day  mimick- 
ing, the  next  destroying,  the  works  of  all  the  noble 
persons  who  made  its  intellectual  or  art  life  possible 
to  it.  ...  In  the  midst  of  all  this  you  have  to 
become  lowly  and  strong." 


CHAPTER  XIX 
"ARATRA  PENTELICI"   (1872) 

THIS  course  of  Slade  Lectures  treats  of  the  Ele- 
ments of  Sculpture.  At  setting  forth  Ruskin  con- 
demns the  lifeless  work  of  cutting  and  chiselling 
jewels,  in  as  much  as  true  goods  are  common  goods, 
and  these  crystals  are  prized  chiefly  because  of  their 
rarity.  True  sculpture  he  teaches  to  be  the  conquest 
of  the  plough-share  and  the  chisel  over  clay ;  it  is  the 
victory  of  life ;  and  the  true  sculptor  "  sees  Pallas," 
that  is,  the  spirit  of  life,  and  of  wisdom  in  the  choice 
of  life  to  be  honoured  by  art.  This  is  another  form 
of  the  lesson  on  "  natural  form."  Life  purifies  de- 
sign. Here  is  briefly  the  indication  of  the  essential 
matter  of  these  lectures : 

True  schools  of  sculpture  are  peculiar  to  nations 
in  their  youth  and  in  their  strong  humanity.  The 
Greeks  found  Phoenician  and  Etruscan  art  monstrous 
and  made  them  human.  The  Florentines  found 
Byzantine  and  Norman  art  monstrous  and  made 
them  human — both  the  reforming  schools  being 
wholly  sincere. 

"  We,  on  the  contrary,  are  now  .  .  .  abso- 
lutely without  sincerity  ;  absolutely,  therefore,  without 
imagination,  and  without  virtue.  Our  hands  are  dex- 
terous with  the  vile  and  deadly  dexterity  of  machines; 

300 


"ARATRA  PENTELICI"  201 

our  minds  filled  with  incoherent  fragments  of  faith, 
which  we  cling  to  in  cowardice,  without  believing, 
and  make  pictures  of,  in  vanity,  without  loving." 

Then  follows  a  sketch  of  the  Thames  Embankment ; 
its  gas  jets  coming  out  of  fishes'  tails  borrowed  from 
a  refuse  Neapolitan  marble,  and  these  ill-cast  and 
lacquered  to  imitate  bronze,  adorned  with  a  caduceus 
stolen  from  Mercury,  a  street-knocker  from  two  or 
three  million  street  doors,  the  initials  of  the  casting 
firm,  and  a  lion's  head  copied  from  the  Greek ;  while 
the  arch  of  Waterloo  Bridge,  under  which  this  em- 
bankment passes,  is  but  a  "  gloomy  and  hollow  heap 
of  wedged  blocks  of  blind  granite." 

Sculpture  touches  life  essentially,  and  is  forbidden 
to  recognise  those  accidental  beauties,  such  as  the 
growth  of  lichen  on  a  tree,  that  a  painter  pauses  on. 
Its  drapery  has  caught  the  life  of  the  body.  The 
controversy  between  Florentine  and  Greek  drapery — 
the  Florentine  having  its  own  beauty  rather  than  the 
body's  beauty — is  in  truth  the  difference  between 
painting  and  sculpture.  In  the  study  of  the  Greek 
Ruskin  takes  us  through  the  nine  centuries — three 
archaic,  three  central,  and  three  decadent — whereof 
the  fifth  century  B.  c.  is  symmetrically  the  middle  age 
and  the  greatest.  He  insists  upon  the  naturalism  of 
the  Greeks,  and  plunges  once  more  into  that  per- 
petual question — whether  art  can  ever  approach  too 
near  to  nature,  answering  with  that  emphatic  "  No  !  " 
to  which  some  of  his  pages  hardly  seem  to  assent 
literally.  Once  more  he  reproaches  the  artists  called 


2O2  JOHN    RUSKIN 

"  ideal,"  whether  sculptors  or  painters,  for  attempting 
to  mend  nature;  and  to  this  rebuke  many  and  many 
an  artist's  heart  must  have  replied  that  this  is  but  a 
trap  of  words,  for,  at  the  worst,  it  is  not  nature  the 
painter  tries  to  mend,  but  his  picture.  In  Modern 
Painters  it  had  been  written  :  u  The  picture  which  is 
taken  as  a  substitute  for  nature  had  better  be  burned  "  ; 
but  are  we  forbidden  to  do  honor  to  a  "  substitute  " 
by  the  name,  say,  of  emissary,  ambassador,  or  repre- 
sentative ? 

"  The  true  sign,"  says  Ruskin,  "  of  the  greatest  art 
is  to  part  voluntarily  with  its  greatness,"  by  making 
the  eyes  of  those  who  look  upon  it  to  desire  the 
natural  fact.  And  this  the  Greeks  knew.  Phalaris 
says  of  the  bull  of  Perilaus  :  "  It  only  wanted  motion 
and  bellowing  to  seem  alive  ;  and  as  soon  as  I  saw  it 
I  cried  out,  It  ought  to  be  sent  to  the  god " — to 
Apollo,  that  is,  who  would  delight  in  a  work  worthy 
to  deceive  not  the  simple  but  the  wise.  The  Greek 
"  rules  over  the  arts  to  this  day,  and  will  forever,  be- 
cause he  sought  not  first  for  beauty,  not  first  for  pas- 
sion or  for  invention,  but  for  Rightness."  With  him 
was  the  origin  not  only  of  all  broad,  mighty,  and 
calm  conception,  "  but  of  all  that  is  divided,  delicate, 
and  tremulous."  To  him  is  owing  the  gigantic  pillar 
of  Agrigentum  and  the  "  last  fineness  of  the  Pisan 
Chapel  of  the  Thorn."  The  beginning  of  Christian 
chivalry  was  in  his  bridling  of  the  white  and  the  black 
horses — the  spiritual  and  animal  natures.  "  He  be- 
came at  last  Gr<tculus  esurient,  little  and  hungry,  and 
every  man's  errand  boy,"  but  this  was  in  late  ages, 


"  ARATRA    PENTELICI  "  203 

"by  his  iniquity,  and  his  competition,  and  his  love  of 
talking." 

Ruskin  gives  a  Greek  lesson  on  the  modesty  of  art : 
— no  block  for  building  should  be  larger  than  a  cart 
can  carry,  or  a  cross-beam  and  a  couple  of  pulleys 
can  lift;  a  lesson  on  the  modesty  of  material  in 
sculpture — clay,  marble,  metal  having  their  limita- 
tions, which  are  also  their  particular  powers ;  an  ex- 
quisite lesson  on  the  subtle  laws  of  low  relief;  one 
on  art  handicraft  and  art  for  the  multitude.  As  far 
as  I  know,  the  first — it  is  not  quite  the  only — refer- 
ence to  Japanese  art  is  in  these  lectures,  which  were 
illustrated  by  an  admirably  vital  Japanese  fish ;  but 
Oriental  art  was  generally  represented,  in  Ruskin's 
mind,  by  the  Indian,  which  is  obscure,  dateless,  and 
dead. 

Two  quotations  follow,  which  need  no  explicit 
connection  here  with  the  rest : 

"  Art  is  not  possible  to  any  sickly  person,  but  in- 
volves the  action  and  force  of  a  strong  man's  arm 
from  the  shoulder." 

And  this  from  the  lecture  on  Imagination  : 

"  Remember  .  .  .  that  it  is  of  the  very  high- 
est importance  that  you  should  know  what  you  are, 
and  determined  to  be  the  best  that  you  may  be ;  but 
it  is  of  no  importance  whatever,  except  as  it  may 
contribute  to  that  end,  to  know  what  you  have  been. 
Whether  your  Creator  shaped  you  with  fingers,  or 
tools,  as  a  sculptor  would  a  lump  of  clay,  or  gradually 
raised  you  to  mankind  through  a  series  of  inferior 
forms,  is  only  of  moment  to  you  in  this  respect — that 


204  JOHN    RUSKIN 

in  the  one  case  you  cannot  expect  your  children  to  be 
nobler  creatures  than  you  are  yourselves ;  in  the 
other,  every  act  and  thought  of  your  present  life  may 
be  hastening  the  advent  of  a  race  which  will  look 
back  to  you,  their  fathers  (and  you  ought  at  least  to 
have  attained  the  dignity  of  desiring  that  it  may  be 
so),  with  incredulous  disdain." 

The  lectures  close  with  a  history  of  the  decline  of 
great  art  in  the  work  of  a  great  man — Michelangiolo 
— and  a  warning  against  the  "  sublimity  "  that  has  so 
taken  captive  the  world.  In  choosing  to  admire  his 
"Last  Judgment  "  rather  than  Tintoretto's"  Paradise," 
men  have  deliberately  chosen,  Ruskin  tells  us,  God's 
curse  instead  of  His  blessing. 

The  Spectator  accused  Ruskin  of  attempting,  by 
his  teaching  in  this  book,  to  make  our  rich  nation 
poor,  if  only  he  could  make  it  artistic.  But  I  need 
not  insist  again  on  this — that  he  held  the  nation  to  be 
poor,  intolerably  poor  in  its  millions,  dangerously  poor 
in  its  dependence  on  the  bread  of  foreign  fields. 

Amongst  the  illustrations  is  that  of  the  two  profiles — 
the  "  Apollo  of  Syracuse  "  and  the  "  Self-Made  Man." 
The  draughtsman  of  the  latter  most  admirable  head 
("  so  vigorously  drawn,  and  with  so  few  touches,  that 
Phidias  or  Turner  himself  could  scarcely  have  done  it 
better  ")  is  not  named,  but  could  have  been  no  other 
than  Keene. 


CHAPTER  XX 

"THE  EAGLE'S  NEST"  (1872) 

THIS  book  was  the  one  preferred  by  Carlyle.  One 
must  wonder  whether  the  passage  on  the  immorality 
of  original  or  separate  style  in  art  seemed  to  him  stuff 
o'  the  conscience,  and  whether  he  held  an  author,  like 
a  painter,  to  be  bound  not  to  produce  "  something 
different  from  the  work  of  his  neighbours  " — in  the 
English  language,  for  example. 

The  Eagle's  Nest  (Slade  Lectures)  is  an  essay  in 
search  of  that  wisdom  which  is  president  over  science, 
literature,  and  art — ultimately  the  divine  sophia  also 
called  charity  :  "  Art  is  wise  only  when  unselfish  in 
her  labour ;  Science  wise  only  when  un- 

selfish in  her  statement."  Art  is  the  shadow  or  re- 
flection of  wise  science ;  and  both  are  peaceful,  tem- 
perate, and  content."  The  eagle  and  the  mole  have 
their  natural  places  of  knowledge  and  ignorance, 
but  "  man  has  the  choice  of  stooping  in  science  be- 
neath himself  and  of  rising  above  himself"  ;  therefore 
he  has  to  seek  the  sophia  that  is  beyond,  for  his  in- 
spiration and  restraint.  He  needs  "  imaginative 
knowledge,"  and  especially  "knowledge  of  the 
feelings  of  living  creatures,"  knowledge  of  life. 

"  Sophia  is  the  faculty  which  recognises  in  all  things 
their  bearing  upon  life,  in  the  entire  sum  of  life  that 
we  know." 

205 


2O6  JOHN    RUSKIN 

And  sophia  is  offended  by  egoism  : 

"  In  all  base  schools  of  art,  the  craftsman  is  de- 
pendent for  his  bread  on  originality  ;  that  is  to  say,  on 
rinding  in  himself  some  fragment  of  isolated  faculty, 
by  which  his  work  may  be  recognised  as  distinct  from 
that  of  other  men.  We  are  ready  enough  to  take  de- 
light in  our  little  doings,  without  any  such  stimulus ; 
what  must  be  the  effect  of  the  popular  applause  which 
continually  suggests  that  the  little  thing  we  can 
separately  do- is  as  excellent  as  it  is  singular!  . 
In  all  great  schools  of  art  these  conditions  are  exactly 
reversed.  An  artist  is  praised  in  these,  not  for  what 
is  different  in  him  from  others ;  .  .  .  but  only 
for  doing  most  strongly  what  all  are  endeavouring ; 
and  for  contributing  ...  to  some  great  achieve- 
ment, to  be  completed  by  the  unity  of  multitudes,  and 
the  sequence  of  ages." 

Wisdom  is  outraged,  not  only  in  our  art  but  in  our 
science,  which  we  have  not  used,  for  example,  to 
prevent  the  famines  in  the  East.  Ruskin  habitually 
accuses  modern  men  of  these  failures  as  though  they 
were  immediate  murders.  The  Middle  Ages  he  loves 
were  wont  to  put  men,  women  and  children  to  death 
by  sword  or  privation  or  fire ;  he  multiplies  the  thou- 
sands that  so  died  in  an  Italian  town  into  the  thou- 
sands that  die  by  hunger  in  an  Indian  province,  and 
with  these  numbers  multiplies  our  guilt. 

"  No  people,  understanding  pain,  ever  inflicted  so 
much  ;  no  people,  understanding  facts,  ever  acted  on 
them  so  little." 

Mimetic  art,  says  the  third  lecture,  is  in  epitome  in 
Shakespeare's  sentence,  placed  in  the  mouth  of 


"THE  EAGLE'S  NEST"  207 

Theseus — "  the  hero,"  as  it  chances,  "  whose  shadow, 
or  semblance  in  marble,  is  admittedly  the  most  ideal 
and  heroic  we  possess  of  man  "  ;  and  the  sentence  is : 
"The  best  in  this  kind  are  but  shadows;  and  the 
worst  are  no  worse,  if  imagination  amend  them." 
And  because  the  works  of  art  are  shadows,  Ruskin 
would  have  us  to  love  them  and  to  use  them  only  to 
enable  us  ' c  to  remember  and  love  what  they  are  cast 
by."  To  love  art  otherwise  is  to  be  the  fool  who 
wonders  at  his  own  shadow.  Even  Ruskin  has  spoken 
no  sayings  harder  to  bear  than  these.  Wise  art  is  in 
direct  relation  to  wise  science,  we  are  told  in  the  same 
lecture ;  they  have  the  same  subjects ;  and  art  helps 
science,  and  helps  her  more  and  more  as  the  degrees 
of  science  rise ;  that  is,  art  gives  little  help  to  the 
science  of  chemistry,  little  to  the  science  of  anatomy 
(it  is  Shakespeare  that  Ruskin  has  taken  as  the  "sub- 
ject," and  he  gauges  what  chemistry  and  anatomy 
have  to  tell  us  of  Shakespeare) ;  but  it  helps  more  the 
science  of  human  sensibility,  that  science  which  has 
something  to  tell  of  Shakespeare's  nerve-power  and 
emotion ;  and  it  helps  most  of  all  the  science  of 
theology,  which  tells  us  of  Shakespeare's  relation  to  a 
Being  greater  than  himself. 

The  lecture  passes  to  the  consideration  of  the 
sophia  that  stands  above  the  several  sciences ;  orni- 
thology is  the  subject  of  the  lecturer's  present  lesson, 
and  nest-building  gives  him  the  opportunity  for  his 
loveliest  work,  wherein  we  are  appropriately  made  to 
love  the  nest-building  rather  than  the  description. 
And  the  great  artist,  Ruskin  says,  works  somewhat 


208  JOHN    RUSKIN 

like  the  bird — "with  the  feeling  we  may  attribute  to  a 
diligent  bull-finch — that  the  thing,  whether  pretty  or 
ugly,  could  not  have  been  better  done,"  and  he  is 
"  thankful  it  is  no  worse."  And  though  this  is  the 
feeling  of  the  great,  could  not  even  ordinary  men, 
asks  Ruskin,  be  so  simple  in  their  measure  that  supe- 
rior beings  might  be  interested  in  their  work,  as  men 
are  in  the  birds'  ? 

"  It  cannot  be  imagined  that  either  the  back  streets 
of  our  manufacturing  towns,  or  the  designs  of  our 
suburban  villas,  are  things  which  the  angels  desire  to 
look  into ;  but  we  should  at  least  possess 

as  much  unconscious  art  as  the  lower  brutes,  and 
build  nests  which  shall  be,  for  ourselves,  entirely  con- 
venient, and  may  perhaps  in  the  eyes  of  superior  be- 
ings appear  more  beautiful  than  to  our  own." 

It  would  be  easy  to  reply  that  the  suburban  villa  with 
its  bathrooms  is — whatever  else  it  may  fail  to  be — 
more  convenient  and  ingenious  than  a  nest.  And  as 
for  the  noise  of  a  town  and  the  noise  of  birds,  com- 
pared on  a  following  page,  Ruskin  does  not  open  any 
door  on  the  crashing  street  he  loathes,  in  order  to 
listen  to  the  Beethoven  within  the  walls.  Some 
sophia  originally  directed  the  prudence  of  the  com- 
mon builder  ;  much  sophia  inspired  the  music.  It  is 
music  again  that  gravely  refuses  assent  to  these  les- 
sons of  humiliation,  repeated  in  the  fourth  lecture. 

Ruskin  anticipates  the  murmurs  of  his  hearers  at 
hearing  him  rank  sciences  in  degrees  whereof  chem- 
istry holds  the  lowest  and  theology  the  highest; 
nevertheless  he  affirms  that  if  theology  be  science  at 


"THE  EAGLES  NEST  209 

all,  the  highest  is  its  place ;  and  that  it  is  a  science 
other  sciences  vouch : 

"You  will  find  it  a  practical  fact  that  external 
temptation  and  inevitable  trials  of  temper  have  power 
against  you  which  your  health  and  virtue  depend  on 
your  resisting ;  that,  if  not  resisted,  the  evil  energy 
of  them  will  pass  into  your  own  heart ; 
and  that  the  ordinary  and  vulgarised  phrase  c  the 
Devil,  or  betraying  spirit,  is  in  him '  is  the  most 
scientifically  accurate  which  you  can  apply  to  any 
person  so  influenced." 

All  science,  the  lecture  proceeds,  must  needs  be 
modest,  because  although  the  field  of  fact  is  immeas- 
urable, not  so  is  the  human  power  of  research.  Art 
is  modest ;  Ruskin  here  commends  humble  landscape 
and  discommends  the  Matterhorns  and  Monte  Rosas ; 
although  elsewhere  he  laments  that  good  painters  are 
too  easily  content  with  the  odds  and  ends  of  land- 
scape, and  leave  noble  scenery  to*  the  bad  ones.  Art, 
according  to  the  present  lesson,  should  be  content. 
The  promise  that  we  shall  know  all  things  is  a  siren 
promise,  as  it  was  to  Ulysses.  Let  us  not  abandon, 
for  the  sake  of  limited  knowledge,  "  the  charity  that 
is  for  itself  sufficing,  and  for  others  serviceable." 
And  for  the  sake  of  contentment  Ruskin  allows  us  to 
be  pleased  in  the  little  things  we  can  do,  "  more  than 
in  the  great  things  done  by  other  people."  He  for- 
bears here  to  intimidate  us  with  that  menacing  ques- 
tion of  the  earlier  page  of  these  lectures — what  will 
our  selfishness  grow  to  if  we  cherish  our  own  achieve- 
ment ?  For  we  are  to  confess  the  little  we  do  to  be 


2IO  JOHN    RUSKIN 

little,  and  contributory.  Art  must  be  happy,  and 
therefore  content,  even  in  its  rudeness  and  ignorance  : 

"  Ignorance,  which  is  contented  and  clumsy,  will 
produce  what  is  imperfect,  but  not  offensive.  But 
ignorance  ^contented,  and  dexterous,  learning  what 
it  cannot  understand,  and  imitating  what  it  cannot 
enjoy,  produces  the  most  loathsome  forms  of  manu- 
facture that  can  disgrace  or  mislead  humanity." 

The  finest  art  of  the  world  has  been  provincial, 
limited  and  strengthened  by  local  difficulties,  and  this 
is  another  occasion  for  contentment. 

The  sixth  lecture  is  on  u  The  Relation  to  Art  of 
the  Science  of  Light."  Ruskin  studies  the  sense  of 
sight  as  what  it  is — a  spiritual  phenomenon.  The 
spirituality  of  the  senses  is  manifest  to  him,  as  to 
every  thinker.  Science,  at  the  time  of  the  writing  of 
this  lecture,  was  beginning  to  adopt  the  view  that 
"  sight  is  purely  material  " ;  but  the  "  view  "  was  not 
a  view — it  was  no  more  than  a  confusion  of  words. 
At  the  same  date  some  rhetoric  had  been  spent  by  a 
scientific  writer  on  the  sun :  "  He  rears  the  whole 
vegetable  world,  .  .  .  his  fleetness  is  in  the 
lion's  foot,  he  springs  in  the  panther,  he  slides  in  the 
snake,"  &c.,  which  is  also  but  a  kind  of  circular 
work  of  words.  Ruskin's  retort  is  so  exquisitely 
written  that  it  must  be  extracted  with  little  shorten- 
ing: 

"  As  I  was  walking  in  the  woods,  and  moving  very 
quietly,  I  came  suddenly  on  a  small  steel-grey  ser- 
pent, lying  in  the  middle  of  the  path ;  and  it  was 


"THE  EAGLE'S  NEST"  211 

greatly  surprised  to  see  me.  Serpents,  however, 
always  have  complete  command  of  their  feelings,  and 
it  looked  at  me  for  a  quarter  of  a  minute  without  the 
slightest  change  of  posture  ;  then,  with  an  almost  im- 
perceptible motion,  it  began  to  withdraw  itself  beneath 
a  cluster  of  leaves.  Without  in  the  least  hastening  its 
action  it  gradually  concealed  the  whole  of  its  body.  I 
was  about  to  raise  one  of  the  leaves,  when  I  saw  what 
I  thought  was  the  glance  of  another  serpent,  in  the 
thicket  at  the  path  side;  but  it  was  the  same  one, 
which,  having  once  withdrawn  itself  from  observation 
beneath  the  leaves,  used  its  utmost  agility  to  spring 
into  the  wood  ;  and  with  so  instantaneous  a  flash  of 
motion  that  I  never  saw  it  leave  the  covert,  and  only 
caught  the  gleam  of  light  as  it  glided  away  into  the 
copse.  ...  I  am  pleased  to  hear  .  .  .  how 
necessarily  that  motion  proceeds  from  the  sun.  But 
where  did  its  device  come  from  ?  " 

From  the  sun  too ;  and  the  flight  of  the  dove  from  the 
sun  also;  but  the  difference  of  those  derivations, 
whence  are  they  ?  "  Animism  "  had  hardly  yet  en- 
tered into  the  controversy  in  1872.  How  much  of  a 
man  does  a  serpent  see  ?  asks  Ruskin  : 

"  Make  me  a  picture  of  the  appearance  of  a  man,  as 
far  as  you  can  judge  it  can  take  place  on  the  snake's 
retina.  .  .  .  How  say  you  of  a  tiger's  eye,  or  a 
cat's  ?  .  .  .  I  want  to  know  what  the  appearance 
is  to  an  eagle,  two  thousand  feet  up,  of  a  sparrow  in  a 
hedge." 

In  the  lecture  on  "  The  Sciences  of  Inorganic  Form  " 
we  find  chiefly  the  lesson  on  drapery  which  teaches 
finely  that  drapery  "  must  become  organic  under  the 


212  JOHN    RUSKIN 

artist's  hand  by  his  invention  " ;  and  in  that  following, 
on  "  Organic  Form,"  the  teaching  enforced — that  art 
has  nothing  to  do  with  structure,  causes,  or  absolute 
facts,  and  that  therefore  "  the  study  of  anatomy  gen- 
erally, whether  of  plants,  animals,  or  man,  is  an  im- 
pediment to  graphic  art."  Man  has  to  think  of  all 
living  creatures  "  with  their  skins  on  them  and  with 
their  souls  in  them ; "  he  is  to  know 

"  How  they  are  spotted,  wrinkled,  furred,  and 
feathered  ;  and  what  the  look  of  them  is,  in  their  eyes  ; 
and  what  grasp,  or  cling,  or  trot,  or  pat,  in  their  paws 
and  claws." 

Then  follow  some  exquisite  pages  on  the  dogs  of 
art,  from  Anacreon's  in  the  Greek  vase-painting,  on- 
wards. Sir  Joshua,  painting  child  and  dog  together 
in  their  u  infinite  differences  and  blessed  harmonies," 
never,  says  Ruskin,  thinks  of  their  bones. 

"  You  might  dissect  all  the  dead  dogs  in  the  water 
supply  of  London  without  finding  out  what,  as  a 
painter,  it  is  here  your  only  business  precisely  to  know 
— what  sort  of  shininess  there  is  at  the  end  of  a  ter- 
rier's nose." 

Yet  the  breath  was  hardly  gone  in  which  he  had  taught 
his  hearers  to  study  a  little  piece  of  broken  stone  for 
its  vcining,  as,  in  another  volume,  we  shall  find  him 
withering  Millais  for  having  painted  a  wild  rose  with 
a  petal  too  few,  and  commending  Holbein  for  having 
drawn  a  skeleton  with  a  rib  too  many.  The  student 
should  easily  understand  the  difference.  In  the  case  of 


"THE  EAGLE'S  NEST"  213 

the  rose  the  painter  had  committed  a  fault  against  the 
duty  of  ordinary  and  innocent  sight — a  painter's  first 
duty,  the  duty  of  the  daily  vision ;  not  so  in  the  case 
of  the  skeleton.  And  almost,  though  not  quite,  the 
same  difference  may  be  found  between  geological 
reserves  and  anatomical  secrets.  Anatomy,  says 
Ruskin,  misleads  the  artist  especially  in  the  study 
of  the  eagle's  head,  with  its  projection  of  the  brow, 
hooding  the  eye — its  most  eagle-like  characteristic, 
which  the  bone  does  not  suggest  and  which  no  dis- 
sector seems  to  have  taken  the  trouble  to  notice.  But 
the  Greek  artist,  and  the  Pisan,  knew  of  it.  Further- 
more, through  anatomy  in  art  the  lower  class  of  animals 
are  represented  well,  and  the  higher,  ill.  As  for  the 
study  of  the  nude,  Ruskin  holds  it  to  be,  at  any  rate, 
a  bad  thing  for  our  care  for  beauty  in  dress  and  in 
the  conditions  of  actual  life ;  and  he  corrects  the 
popular  idea  of  Greek  power :  it  was  due  little  to 
admiration  of  bodily  beauty,  but  much  to  those  causes 
of  bodily  beauty — "  discipline  of  the  senses,  romantic 
ideal  of  honour,  respect  for  justice,  and  belief  in 
God."  The  lecture  ends  with  "  a  piece  of  theology 
.  .  . — a  science  much  closer  to  your  art  than 
anatomy  "  : 

" '  I  believe  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  Lord  and  Giver 
of  Life.'  Disbelieve  that !  and  your  own  being  is  de- 
graded into  the  state  of  dust  driven  by  the  wind.  .  .  . 
All  Nature,  with  one  voice — with  one  glory, — is  set  to 
teach  you  reverence  for  the  life  communicated  to  you 
from  the  Father  of  Spirits :  .  .  .  and  all  the 
strength,  and  all  the  arts  of  men,  are  measured  by,  and 


214  JOHN    RUSKIN 

founded  upon,  their  reverence  for  the  passion,  and 
their  guardianship  of  the  purity,  of  Love.  Gentle- 
men—  .  .  .  that  epithet  of 'gentle,' as  you  well 
know,  indicates  the  intense  respect  for  race  and  fa- 
therhood— for  family  dignity  and  chastity — which  was 
visibly  the  strength  of  Rome,  as  it  had  been,  more 
disguisedly,  the  strength  of  Greece." 

The  following  lecture — "  The  Story  of  the  Hal- 
cyon " — deplores  the  popular  idea  of  education  that 
leaves  an  Englishman  in  such  a  state  of  heart  that 
when  he  sees  a  rare  bird  he  kills  it ;  that  is,  he  has 
never  learnt  to  see  it  rightly — to  see  its  life.  Man 
should  see  a  bird  rightly,  and  a  man  rightly  : 

u  Then  the  last  part  of  education  will  be — whatever 
is  meant  by  that  beatitude  of  the  pure  in  heart — see- 
ing God  rightly." 

In  his  study  of  the  bird  Ruskin  proposes  the  mystery 
of  the  limiting  laws  of  structure  : 

"It  is  appointed  that  vertebrated  animals  shall  have 
no  more  than  four  legs,  and  that,  if  they  require  to  fly, 
the  two  legs  in  front  must  become  wings,  it  being 
against  law  that  they  should  have  more  than  these 
four  members  in  ramification  from  the  spine.  .  •  . 
What  strongly  planted  three-legged  animals  there  might 
have  been!  what  symmetrically  radiant  five-legged 
ones !  what  volatile  six-legged  ones ;  what  circum- 
spect seven-headed  ones  !  Had  Darwinism  been  true, 
we  should  long  ago  have  split  our  heads  in  two  with 
foolish  thinking,  or  thrust  out,  from  above  our  covet- 
ous hearts,  a  hundred  desirous  arms  and  clutching  hands. 
.  .  .  But  the  law  is  around  us,  and  within  ;  un- 
conquerable ;  granting,  up  to  a  certain  limit,  power 


"THE  EAGLE'S  NEST"  215 

over  our  bodies  to  circumstance  and  will :  beyond  that 
limit,  inviolable,  inscrutable,  and,  so  far  as  we  know, 
eternal." 

His  contempt  for  "  Darwinism  "  Ruskin  explains  by 
the  kind  of  Darwinian  argument  then  presented  to 
students.  He  himself  had  consulted  Darwin's  ac- 
count of  the  construction  of  the  peacock's  feather. 
None  of  the  existing  laws  of  life  regulating  the  local 
disposition  of  colour  in  plume-filaments  seemed  to  be 
known  : 

"  I  am  informed  only  that  peacocks  have  grown  to 
be  peacocks  out  of  brown  pheasants  because  the  young 
feminine  brown  pheasants  like  fine  feathers.  Where- 
upon I  say  to  myself,  l  Then  either  there  was  a  dis- 
tinct species  of  brown  pheasants  originally  born  with 
a  taste  for  fine  feathers,  and  therefore  with  remarkable 
eyes  in  their  heads, — which  would  be  a  much  more 
wonderful  distinction  of  species  than  being  born  with 
remarkable  eyes  in  their  tails, — or  else  ail  pheasants 
would  have  been  peacocks  by  this  time.' ' 

The  reader  will  do  well  to  read  this  twice  ;  it  is  an 
extraordinarily  full  piece  of  writing. 

From  the  lovely  fables  of  Alcyone  and  Ceyx  Ruskin 
quotes — it  is  wonderfully  to  the  purpose  of  this  book 
— the  word  of  Simonides  in  his  description  of  the 
halcyon  days :  "  In  the  wild  winter  months  Zeus 
gives  the  wisdom  of  calm."  But  as  for  us, 

"  To  what  sorrowful  birds  shall  we  be  likened,  who 
make  the  principal  object  of  our  lives  dispeace  and 
unrest,  and  turn  our  wives  and  daughters  out  of  their 


2l6  JOHN    RUSKIN 

nests  to  work  for  themselves  ?  Nay,  strictly  speak- 
ing, we  have  not  even  got  so  much  as  nests  to  turn 
them  out  of." 

On  the  old  subject  of  the  ill  building  of  human  nests 
Ruskin  has  an  excellent  phrase  for  the  Houses  of 
Parliament : 

"  A  number  of  English  gentlemen  get  together  to 
talk ;  they  have  no  delight  whatever  in  any  kind  of 
beauty ;  but  they  have  a  vague  notion  that  the  ap- 
pointed place  for  their  conversation  should  be  dignified 
and  ornamental ;  and  they  build  over  their  combined 
heads  the  absurdest  and  emptiest  piece  of  filigree, — 
and  as  it  were  eternal  foolscap  in  freestone, — which 
ever  human  beings  disgraced  their  posterity  by." 

While  bullfinches  "  peck  a  Gothic  tracery  out  of 
dead  clematis,"  the  English  yeoman  thinks  it  much 
if  he  gets  from  his  landlord  "  four  dead  walls  and  a 
drain-pipe."  He  is  lodged  as  "  a  puppet  is  dropped 
into  a  deal  box."  But  two  centuries  ago,  "  without 
steam,  without  electricity,  almost  without  books,  and 
altogether  without  help  from  Casst/fs  Educator,"  the 
Swiss  shepherd  "  could  build  himself  a  chalet,  daintily 
carved,  and  with  flourished  inscriptions."  No  man 
should  be  satisfied  with  less  than  a  cottage  and  a 
garden  in  pure  air,  and  the  nests  of  men  should  be 
nests  of  peace.  The  word  is  left,  very  exquisitely, 
with  the  halcyons ;  for  Ruskin  adds  that  the  making 
of  peace  must  be  in  this  life : 

"  Not  the  taking  of  arms  against,  but  the  building 
of  nests  amidst,  its  *  sea  of  troubles.'  " 


CHAPTER  XXI 

"ARIADNE  FLORENTINA"  (1873) 

THE  six  Slade  Lectures  on  Wood  and  Metal  En- 
graving contain  some  of  the  severest  of  all  the 
author's  critical  work — -severest  not  because  it  shows 
a  fault  of  Diirer  or  declares  a  certain  destructive  in- 
fluence of  Michelangiolo,  but  severest  in  its  intensity 
of  thought  and  in  the  closeness  of  the  hold  this  ad- 
venturous and  resolute  mind  takes  upon  some  dis- 
covered track  of  thought,  however  difficult,  and 
compels  the  reader  to  attempt  the  path.  Many  have 
held  Ruskin's  method  of  thought  to  have  been  some- 
thing less  purely  experimental  than  this  ;  and  let  us 
grant  that  he  does  set  out  upon  an  untried  quest  with 
a  "  working  hypothesis  " ;  but  without  a  working 
hypothesis  experiment  itself  would  lack  impetus  and 
direction,  and  would  sometimes  hesitate  to  move  in 
the  abyss.  That  detachment  from  his  own  working 
hypothesis  which  the  student  of  science  owes  to  the 
end  of  his  journey  shall  we  claim  of  the  student  of 
ethics  also  ?  Surely  there  is  but  one  assumption  in 
Ariadne  Florentina — that  wherewith  nearly  all  thinkers 
(including  Kant,  but,  I  suppose,  excluding  Nietzche) 
have  done  their  work — that  is,  the  confession  of  the 
moral  law  :  that  there  is  a  good,  and  that  pure  cruelty, 
mere  hatred,  and  ingratitude,  for  example,  are  con- 
trary thereto.  This  book,  in  which  so  many  things 

217 


2l8  JOHN    RUSKIN 

are  pursued  so  far  with  an  infinite  courage,  enter- 
prise, and  good-will,  takes  no  more  than  this  for 
granted,  but  takes  it  to  heart — takes  it  so  that  neither 
height  nor  depth  nor  any  other  creature  can  separate 
the  author  from  his  assumption. 

Everything  following  that  was  to  be  proved  seems 
to  be  proved  and  demonstrated.  One  exception  there 
is  perhaps,  and  one  that  must  make  a  strange  effect 
of  bathos  stated  here,  but 

"  Thou  canst  not  pluck  a  flower 
Without  troubling  of  a  star ;  " 

And  there  is  nothing  touched  in  these  lectures  but  to 
great  issues :  I  mean  the  apparently  arbitrary  law 
tacitly  established  whereby  Ruskin  separates  oil-paint- 
ing from  all  the  other  arts,  and  makes  it  solitary, 
judging  it  by  other  theories  and  on  other  terms  than 
theirs.  The  sculptor,  the  draughtsman,  the  engraver 
are  instructed  to  decide  "  what  are  the  essential  points 
in  the  things  they  see."  Such  decision  is  declared  to 
be  "  a  habit  entirely  necessary  to  strong  humanity," 
and  "natural  to  all  humanity."  And  yet  painting — 
oil-painting — is  placed  in  the  very  next  sentence  un- 
der the  disability  (Ruskin  here,  for  the  purpose  of  his 
argument  at  the  moment,  confesses  the  disability)  of  a 
difference  from  all  the  arts  in  this  respect :  "  Painting, 
when  it  is  complete,  leaves  it  much  to  your  own 
judgment  what  to  look  at ;  and,  if  you  are  a  fool,  you 
look  at  the  wrong  thing :  but  in  a  fine  woodcut  the 
master  says,  c  You  shall  look  at  this  or  nothing.' ' 
When  an  artist  to-day  insists  upon  calling  his  work 


"ARIADNE  FLORENTINA"  219 

a  "pattern"  he  does  no  more  than  Ruskin  whom  he 
thinks  to  oppose  and  refute,  but  who  has  said,  for  all 
to  hear : 

"  You  know  I  told  you  a  sculptor's  business  is  first 
to  cover  a  surface  with  pleasant  bosses,  whether  they 
mean  anything  or  not ;  so  an  engraver's  is  to  cover  it 
with  pleasant  lines,  whether  they  mean  anything  or 
not.  That  they  should  mean  something  is  indeed 
desirable  afterwards ;  but  first  we  must  be  orna- 
mental." 

But  with  colour  this  whole  theory  is  tyrannously  (or 
a  modern  reader  will  hold  it  to  be  tyrannously)  altered. 
It  is  this  insistence  upon  a  certain  kind  of  "  complete- 
ness "  in  painting  only  and  solely  that  has  set  the 
enmity  (seeming  to  strike  deep  but  not  striking  deep) 
between  this  the  greatest  of  all  teachers  of  art  and 
some  of  the  greatest  of  designers  and  composers  who 
were  also  painters ;  and  it  is  his  insistence  in  this 
book  upon  local  colour  as  the  chief  thing  wherewith 
oil-painting  is  concerned  that  is  the  cause  of  his  dis- 
trust, his  disapproval,  at  best  his  half-praise,  of  some 
of  the  greatest  painters  of  illumination  and  darkness, 
those  who  painted  colour  effaced,  half-effaced,  just 
recognised  by  flashes,  fully  confessed  in  turn  by  the 
over-ruling  light. 

Let  me  hazard  the  suggestion  that  Ruskin  seems 
resolved,  in  treating  the  Gothic  or  colour  schools,  to 
set  his  painter  with  his  back  to  the  sun,  so  that  he 
shall  see  all  things,  illuminated  indeed  but  strong  in 
their  own  colour;  and  forbids  him  to  face  the  sun 
and  to  see  all  the  world  as  it  looks  in  that  great  con-( 


22O  JOHN    RUSKIN 

frontation — lustrous  and  illuminated  indeed,  but  made 
up  of  infinite  and  innumerable  shadow.  But  why 
should  not  the  colourist  look  with  the  sun  to-day  and 
towards  the  sun  to-morrow,  and  belong  to  both  the 
two  great  schools  by  that  simple  power  of  taking  both 
stations  ?  A  man  and  the  sun  may  surely  be  allowed 
a  complex  and  various  relation  with  one  another. 
True,  Ruskin's  theory  of  local  colour  was  learnt  in 
front  of  the  works  of  the  Tuscans,  and  above  all  in 
the  Library  of  Siena,  but  is  nothing  to  be  added  to 
Tuscany,  by  Holland,  by  Norwich,  by  France  ?  His 
own  Turner  faced  the  sun,  and  he  himself  faces  the 
sun  in  half  his  writings. 

Ruskin — to  me,  I  have  to  confess  hardly  intelligibly 
— joins  the  positive  definite  sight  (the  sight,  let  me 
call  it,  that  you  get,  looking  with  the  sun)  to  the  high 
powers  of  imagination.  He  avers  that  the  Italian 
master  requires  you  to  imagine  a  St.  Elizabeth,  and  to 
see  her  with  all  completeness;  but  that  the  Dutch 
painter  "  only  wishes  you  to  imagine  an  effect  of  sun- 
light on  cow-skin,  which  is  a  far  lower  strain  of  the 
imaginative  faculty."  Moreover,  he  calls  the  feeling 
for  colour  modified  by  sun  a  mere  sensation — the  de- 
vice of  men,  who,  "  not  being  able  to  get  any  pleas- 
ure out  of  their  thoughts,  try  to  get  it  out  of  their 
sensations."  This  may  have  been  accidentally  the 
act  of  some  chiaroscuro  painters ;  but  is  it  essentially 
the  act  of  all  ?  And  is  this  clear  seeing  of  St.  Eliza- 
beth in  her  red  and  blue  essentially  the  work  of  the 
imagination  and  not  of  the  mere  fancy  ? 

Surely  there  is  no  other  occasion  of  controversy  in 


"ARIADNE  FLORENTINA"  221 

this  masterly  book,  wrought  out  of  the  very  life  of 
the  intellect.  We  find  this  important  word  spoken  to 
the  student  of  engraving,  at  the  outset :  "  Your  own 
character  will  form  your  style,  .  .  .  but  my 
business  is  to  prevent,  as  far  as  I  can,  your  having 
any  particular  style."  This  goes  to  the  root,  for  all 
the  arts.  The  technical  lessons  follow  : 

"  Engraving  means,  primarily,  making  a  permanent 
cut  or  furrow.  .  .  .  The  central  syllable  of  the 
word  has  become  a  sorrowful  one,  meaning  the  most 
permanent  of  furrows.  .  .  .  Stone  engraving  is 
the  art  of  countries  possessing  marble  and  gems; 
wood  engraving,  of  countries  overgrown  with  forest ; 
metal  engraving,  of  countries  possessing  treasures  of 
silver  and  gold.  And  the  style  of  a  stone  engraver  is 
found  on  pillars  and  pyramids ;  the  style  of  a  wood 
engraver  under  the  eaves  of  larch  cottages ;  the  style 
of  a  metal  engraver  in  the  treasuries  of  kings.  Do 
you  suppose  I  could  rightly  explain  to  you  the  value 
of  a  single  touch  on  brass  by  Finiguerra,  or  on  box  by 
Bewick,  unless  I  had  grasp  of  the  great  laws  of  cli- 
mate and  country ;  and  could  trace  the  inherited 
sirocco  or  tramontana  of  thought  to  which  the  souls 
and  bodies  of  the  men  owed  their  existence  ? " 

He  has  that  "grasp";  and  explains  principally  the 
inheritance  of  the  Florentine  and  that  of  the  German 
— Sandro  Botticelli  and  Holbein.  "  Holbein  is  a 
civilised  boor ;  Botticelli  a  re-animate  Greek."  And 
this  is  his  admirable  judgment  of  the  relation  of  these 
two  to  the  recovered  ancient  learning  and  to  the 
classic  spirit :  that  learning  was  probably  cumbrous  to 
Holbein  : 


222  JOHN    RUSKIN 

"  But  Botticelli  receives  it  as  a  child  in  later  years 
recovers  the  forgotten  dearness  of  a  nursery  tale ;  and 
is  more  himself,  and  again  and  again  himself,  as  he 
breathes  the  air  of  Greece,  and  hears,  in  his  own 
Italy,  the  lost  voice  of  the  Sibyl  murmur  again  by  the 
Avernus  Lake.  ...  It  destroys  Raphael ;  but  it 
graces  him,  and  is  a  part  of  him.  It  all  but  destroys 
Mantegna ;  but  it  graces  him.  And  it  does  not  hurt 
Holbein,  just  because  it  does  not  grace  him — never 
for  an  instant  is  part  of  him." 

Was  ever  judgment  more  exquisite  ?  And  this,  on 
Florence  herself: 

"The  second  Greeks — these  Florentine  Greeks 
re-animate — are  human  more  strongly,  more  deeply, 
leaping  from  the  Byzantine  death  at  the  call  of 
Christ,  4  Loose  him  and  let  him  go  ! ' ' 

Take  also  this  great  passage.  Ruskin  himself  avers 
that  it  contains  the  most  audacious,  and  the  most 
valuable,  statement  he  had  made,  on  practical  art,  in 
these  lectures.  He  had  seen  that  the  study  of  anat- 
omy brought  with  it  a  certain  injury,  but  he  had 
sought  the  ruin  of  the  Masters — Tintoretto  for  ex- 
ample— elsewhere : 

"And  then  at  last  I  got  hold  of  the  true  clue :  *  II 
disegno  di  Michelangiolo.'  And  the  moment  I  had 
dared  to  accuse  that,  it  explained  everything;  and  I 
saw  that  the  betraying  demons  of  Italian  art,  led  on 
by  Michael  Angelo,  had  been,  not  pleasure,  but 
knowledge  ;  not  indolence,  but  ambition ;  and  not 
love,  but  horror." 


"ARIADNE  FLORENTINA"  223 

From  the  study  of  Botticelli's  Sibyls,  full  of  divine 
perceptions,  I  take  this  little  passage ;  it  adorns  the 
description  of  the  Libyan  Sibyl,  "  loveliest  of  the 
Southern  Pythonesses  "  : 

"A  less  deep  thinker  than  Botticelli  would  have 
made  her  parched  with  thirst,  and  burnt  with  heat. 
But  the  voice  of  God,  through  nature,  to  the  Arab  or 
the  Moor,  is  not  in  the  thirst,  but  in  the  fountain,  not 
in  the  desert,  but  in  the  grass  of  it.  And  this  Libyan 
Sibyl  is  the  spirit  of  wild  grass  and  flowers,  springing 
in  desolate  places." 

In  treating  of  Holbein,  with  a  triumph  for  Hol- 
bein's simplicity  over  even  Diirer's  gifts,  Ruskin 
makes  use  of  some  theology.  He  ought  not  to  have 
permitted  himself  to  use  other  men's  habits  of  phrase 
by  speaking  of  an  "  Indulgence  "  as  a  "  permission  to 
sin."  The  knowledge  that,  according  to  the  defini- 
tion of  those  who  hold  the  doctrine,  an  Indulgence 
(or  remission  of  canonical  penance)  cannot  be  gained 
at  all  without  a  resolution  never  to  commit  any  sin  of 
any  kind  whatever,  is  knowledge  easily  accessible. 
Here,  finally,  is  the  magnificent  page,  on  one  of  the 
plates  of  the  "  Dance  of  Death  "  : 

"  The  labourer's  country  cottage — the  rain  coming 
through  its  roof,  the  clay  crumbling  from  its  parti- 
tions, the  fire  lighted  with  a  few  chips  and  sticks  on 
a  raised  piece  of  the  mud  floor.  .  .  .  But  the 
mother  can  warm  the  child's  supper  of  bread  and  milk 
so — holding  the  pan  by  the  long  handle ;  and  on  mud 
floor  though  it  be,  they  are  happy — she  and  her  child, 
and  its  brother — if  only  they  could  be  left  so.  They 


224  JOHN    RUSK.IN 

shall  not  be  left  so :  the  young  thing  must  leave  them 
— will  never  need  milk  to  be  warmed  for  it  any  more. 
It  would  fain  stay — sees  no  angels — feels  only  an  icy 
grip  on  its  hand,  and  that  it  cannot  stay.  Those  who 
love  it  shriek  and  tear  their  hair  in  vain,  amazed  in 
grief.  *  Oh,  little  one,  thou  must  lie  out  in  the  fields 
then,  not  even  under  this  poor  torn  roof  of  thy  moth- 
er's to-night  ! ' " 


CHAPTER  XXII 

"  VAL  D'ARNO  "  (1874) 

THESE  ten  Slade  Lectures  are  historical  studies  of 
Tuscan  art  during  that  great  act  of  the  war  of  Guelph 
and  Ghibelline  which  had  its  centre  in  the  middle  of 
the  thirteenth  century  in  the  city  of  Florence.  The 
reader  may  hesitate  at  the  outset  to  undertake  Val  <T 
Arno  if  he  fears  politics  so  transfigured  as  in  the  third 
paragraph,  in  which  the  mountains  rehearse  the  solid 
and  rational  authority  of  the  State  j  and  the  clouds 
"  the  more  or  less  spectral,  hooded,  imaginative,  and 
nubiform  authority  of  the  Pope,  and  Church."  Fur- 
thermore, Ruskin  uses  the  names  of  the  Montagus  or 
Montacutes,  and  the  Capulets  or  Cappelletti — "the 
hatted,  scarlet-hatted,  or  hooded " — as  but  lurking 
names  for  Ghibelline  and  Guelph ;  and  in  the  tower 
and  the  dome  he  sees  figures  of  the  same  two  powers 
dividing  the  great  Middle  Ages,  and  contending  in 
arms  upon  the  Lombard  plains  and  in  the  valley  of 
that  Tuscan  river  which  carried  the  whispers  of  Flor- 
ence to  the  walled  banks  of  the  seaward  city.  These 
allegories  in  act  are  somewhat  excessive  in  their  in- 
genuity ;  but  the  history  that  follows  shows  Ruskin's 
severe  hold  of  facts,  the  facts  upon  which  the  historian 
waits  as  a  surgeon  upon  the  pulse  of  a  man  he  cannot 
help.  Ruskin  has  to  tell  vital  history,  and  therefore 
spiritual  history  ;  and  he  looks  so  closely  for  spiritual 

225 


226  JOHN    RUSKIN 

human  meaning  into  the  ambiguous  faces  of  Charles 
of  Anjou  and  Manfred,  Frederick  II.  and  Innocent 
IV.  (very  much  in  the  manner  of  Carlyle,  whom  he 
called  his  master),  that  it  is  well  he  should  have  the 
resolution  to  withdraw,  in  turn,  to  the  distance  that 
commands  the  origins  and  issues  of  human  history, 
and  that  from  a  high  place  he  should  see  also  these 
similitudes  of  clouds  and  armies,  mountains  and  dy- 
nasties, and  men  as  trees  walking. 

Ruskin  is  punctual  in  his  science  of  historical  judg- 
ment, and  will  not  allow  a  passage  of  five  years  in 
that  great  mid-century,  the  thirteenth,  to  leave  so  much 
as  one  equivocal  record.  And  as  the  momentous 
work  done  by  Nicola  Pisano  yields  all  its  significance 
to  this  scrutiny,  so  does  that  antique  work  which 
prompted  him.  So  like  each  other  as  a  pod  and  a  bud 
may  seem  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  do  not  well  know 
the  plant,  so  may  the  decadence  and  the  promise  of 
that  various  Greek  work  which  we  call  Byzantine. 
As  to  some  passage  of  sculpture  we  may  ask,  is  this 
the  impotence  of  decline — or  rather  of  the  time  after 
decline,  or  is  it  the  difficulty  of  youth  ?  Somewhat 
there  is,  hampered  or  folded — in  the  right  sense  im- 
plicit. From  Val  £  Arno  we  learn  that  both  the  with- 
ered and  the  vital  existed  in  contemporary  Greek 
work — twelfth-century  Byzantine ;  some  of  this  art 
was  in  the  husk  and  some  in  the  sheath,  if  one  may 
use  again  the  figure  of  the  plant.  Vasari  did  not  dis- 
tinguish the  one  from  the  other :  and  some  that  is  of 
the  husk  is  held  in  honour  at  the  Lateran,  and  some 
that  is  of  the  sheath  at  Pisa. 


"VAL  D'ARNO  "  227 

From  the  Sarcophagus  with  Meleager's  hunt  on  it 
Nicola  Pisano  learnt  that  which  was  the  beginning  of 
Modern  Art.  This  derivation  of  life,  which  to  the 
less  accurate  eye  seemed  to  be  going  forward  in  a  gen- 
eral and  broadcast  revival,  Ruskin  traces  through  this 
one  strait  way,  through  this  one  Greek  sculpture  and 
this  one  Tuscan  sculptor,  showing  it  to  be  here,  and 
here  only,  a  derivation  of  veritable  life  :  one  genealogy, 
the  counsels  of  one  mind,  one  genius,  one  little  ten 
years'  work — how  narrow  is  the  pass,  how  slight  the 
thread,  how  single  the  issue  !  The  authentic  art,  how 
local,  and  how  brief!  In  the  pulpit  of  Nicola  at  Pisa 
(the  student  may  study  the  model  at  South  Kensing- 
ton) and  especially  in  its  five  cusped  arches — trefoils 
— Ruskin,  as  single  in  the  recognition  as  the  Pisan  in 
the  design,  recognised  the  first  architecture  of  Gothic 
Christianity,  and  discovered  its  point  of  junction  with 
the  art  of  Greece.  He  defends  and  holds  this  pass 
of  authenticity,  this  patent,  despite  some  adverse 
guides  who  seem  to  have  pushed  their  way  by  other 
outlets ;  but  let  it  be  borne  in  mind  that  what  Ruskin 
has  traced  of  the  delicate  differences  in  the  history  of 
art  he  has  gauged  not  by  the  eye  only,  but  also  by  the 
finger.  He  has  followed  the  sculptor  by  drawing ; 
has  felt  sensibly  and  directly  the  direction  of  the  by- 
gone human  hand  ;  has  "  remembered  in  tranquillity 
the  emotion  "  of  another ;  and  has  traced  the  working 
of  hour  by  hour  that  was  charged  with  all  the  fortunes 
of  the  Second  Civilisation.  A  pulpit  was  this  sig- 
nificant piece  of  art,  not  an  altar,  nor  a  tomb ;  and 
the  Greek  sculpture  that  inspired  it  was  on  a  sarcoph- 


228  JOHN    RUSKIN 

agus ;  facts  that  somewhat  (though  rather  by  chance) 
jar  with  Ruskin's  conclusion  to  this  same  chapter : 
"  Christian  architecture  ...  is  for  the  glory  of 
death,  .  .  .  and  is  to  the  end  definable  as  archi- 
tecture of  the  tomb."  Upon  this  follows  a  fine  pas- 
sage upon  tombs  and  their  treasure,  with  the  incidental 
addition  : 

"  It  has  been  thought,  gentlemen,  that  there  is  a  fine 
Gothic  revival  in  your  streets  of  Oxford,  because  you 
have  a  Gothic  door  to  your  County  Bank.  Remember, 
at  all  events,  it  was  other  kind  of  buried  treasure,  and 
bearing  other  interest,  which  Nicola  Pisano's  Gothic 
was  set  to  guard." 

At  Perugia  arose  the  marble  sculptured  fountain  of 
Giovanni  Pisano,  at  Siena  that  of  Jacopo  della 
Quercia.  Ruskin  felt  bitter  regret  that  he  had  not 
seen  the  Sienese  fountain,  before  it  had  been  torn  to 
pieces  and  restored,  except  with  heedless  eyes  when 
he  had  been  a  boy. 

u  I  observe  that  Charles  Dickens  had  the  fortune 
denied  to  me.  4  The  market-place,  or  great  Piazza, 
is  a  large  square,  with  a  great  broken-nosed  fountain 
in  it.'  (Picture*  from  Italy.)" 

The  historical  essay  contained  in  these  lectures 
begins  with  a  passage  that  opens  a  door  from  on  high 
upon  a  historic  country.  As  the  generalising  historian 
of  our  first  lessons  was  wont  to  talk  of  watersheds  and 
watering  rivers,  dull  as  a  map,  Ruskin,  using  an 
equally  large  gesture,  shows  a  landscape-nation  :  the 
valleys  of  Lombardy,  of  Etruria,  and  of  Rome — of  the 


"  VAL  D'ARNO  "  229 

Po,  the  Arno,  and  the  Tiber — fertile  with  the  various 
vitality  of  Italy  ;  the  chivalry  of  Germany,  of  France, 
and  of  the  Saracen  riding  those  fields  in  war.  Against 
some  brief  historic  judgments  in  his  own  wilful  man- 
ner— sudden  judgments  making,  strangely  enough,  a 
hasty  end  of  prolonged  and  difficult  thought — the 
reader  revolts.  Here  is  one  :  "  Before  the  twelfth 
century  the  nations  were  too  savage  to  be  Christian, 
and  after  the  fifteenth  too  carnal."  To  the  glory  of 
these  four  hundred  years,  then,  he  sacrifices  at  a  blow 
the  Thebaid,  Chrysostom  and  Nazianzen,  Augustine 
and  Gregory,  and  the  multitude  of  Bishoprics  of 
North  Africa,  and  the  great  Christian  peasant  popu- 
lations of  the  sixteenth,  seventeenth,  eighteenth,  and 
nineteenth  centuries,  who  have  laboured  in  patience 
upon  Breton,  Provencal,  Lombard,  Tuscan,  Irish 
earth.  It  is  of  nations,  not  of  States,  that  Ruskin 
speaks ;  otherwise,  we  should  have  granted  him  that 
States  have  not  been  Christian ;  the  historian  can 
hardly  venture  to  claim  that  name  for  the  German 
Empire  or  the  French  Monarchy,  or  the  temporal 
power  of  the  Papacy.  Ruskin  further  explains  his 
four  hundred  years : 

"The  delicacy  of  sensation  and  refinements  of 
imagination  necessary  to  understand  Christianity  be- 
long to  the  mid  period  when  men,  risen  from  a  life  of 
brutal  hardship,  are  not  yet  fallen  to  one  of  brutal 
luxury." 

Whether  brutal  luxury  is  a  name  fit  for  the  softer  arts 
of  life — to  use  the  usual  word,  the  "  comforts  " — 
learnt  by  mankind  since  the  fifteenth  century,  I  know 


230  JOHN    RUSKIN 

not ;  it  is  at  any  rate  a  tenable  opinion  that  the  most 
brutal  thing  about  them  is  that  they  belong  to  a  minority. 
But  granting  this,  there  are  yet  perpetual  generations 
of  men  living  in  precisely  this  condition, — "  risen  from 
a  life  of  brutal  hardship  and  not  yet  fallen  to  one  of 
brutal  luxury."  Assuredly  that  condition  was  not 
confined  to  a  few  violent  and  unhappy  centuries, 
centuries  when  for  a  superstition  little  children  were 
dashed  against  the  stones  of  their  poor  villages,  Im- 
perial or  Papal ;  when,  for  a  calumny,  the  young  devout 
Templars,  flowers  of  masculine  innocence,  self- 
sacrifice,  and  good  faith,  were  burnt  alive,  a  score  at 
one  time ;  when,  for  a  jealousy  of  trade,  one  furious 
city  lay  in  wait  for  the  destruction  of  another;  when 
the  revenge  upon  a  political  enemy  was  to  hew  his 
son's  head  off  before  his  eyes,  so  as  to  make  a  last 
spectacle  for  those  eyes  before  they  were  put  out,  and 
ten  years  in  a  dungeon  without  a  page  to  read  or  a 
tree  to  look  at  was  a  common  prelude  to  penal  death. 
Not  then  only  did  a  people  obscure,  unnamed,  in- 
numerable, live  somewhere  between  savagery  and  lux- 
ury, but  century  by  century  ever  since  then.  All  the 
centuries  have  brought  this  life  to  pass,  and  the  race 
has  followed  this  narrow  way  by  a  multitude  that  no 
man  can  number.  Moreover,  is  that  passage,  between 
crude  conditions  and  effete,  trodden  only  by  a  people 
corporately  ?  A  man  lately  freed  from  the  main  force 
that  compelled  his  childhood,  and  generously  simple 
in  that  freedom,  not  yet  slothful  or  fond  of  money,  is 
somewhat  in  the  condition  of  Ruskin's  nations,  re- 
leased from  savagery  and  not  corrupt. 


"  VAL  D'ARNO  "  231 

From  that  more  direct  teaching  of  art,  for  which  the 
student  will  consult  Val  d?  Arno,  may  be  cited  a  subtle 
refutation,  or  rather  correction,  of  the  modern  prin- 
ciple as  to  "  decorating  construction."  A  brief  study 
of  the  decoration  of  the  porch  of  the  Baptistery  at 
Pisa  shows  us  how  arbitrary  is  all  great  decoration. 
Construction  is  followed  indeed,  but  with  happy  choice? 
decision,  and  difference,  whereby  one  member  is  richly 
and  intently  adorned,  and  another  left  blank — the  con- 
struction giving  no  suggestion  of  such  caprice.  To 
decorate  your  construction,  we  learn,  is  a  good  rule 
for  one  who  should  be  barely  conscious  of  it ;  but  for 
a  sculptor  without  the  good  fortune  of  genius  it  is  at 
once  too  much  and  too  little — it  shows  the  way  but  does 
not  teach  the  walk;  and  he  who  thinks  he  has  but  to 
follow  the  road  would  have  a  iar.,~uk;  movement.  So, 
too,  would  the  rhymer  who  wrote  : a  ibics  without  in- 
spiration in  the  transposition  of  s  .cents  and  of  quan- 
tities. As,  in  The  Seven  Lamps,  Ruskin  showed  how 
th3  outer  colouring  of  buildings  had  all  its  vitality  in 
its  own  arbitrary  design,  so  he  shows  the  sculptural 
decoration  to  have  also,  though  less  independently,  a 
life  of  its  own.  The  life  of  the  material,  too,  he 
touches  in  the  chapters  on  "  Marble  Couchant "  and 
"  Marble  Rampant,"  and  the  nature,  the  place,  and 
the  history  of  the  stone,  respected  by  the  ancient 
builders,  who  laid  it  as  it  had  lain  in  the  quarry.  And 
here,  by  the  way,  is  another  of  those  sayings  that 
should  long  ago  have  corrected  the  usual  misunder- 
standing of  Ruskin's  doctrine  :  "  You  are 
an  artist  by  animating  your  copy  of  nature  into  vital 


232  JOHN    RUSKIN 

variation."  Ruskin  goes  on  to  tell  that  the  "  reserved 
variation  "  of  the  Greeks  had  for  a  time  escaped  him, 
but  that  he  had  at  last  found  them  to  be  as  various  as 
the  Goths ;  and  that  the  Greek  sea  or  river  whirl-pool, 
varied  infinitely,  was  the  main  source  of  the  spiral  or 
rampant  decoration  of  Gothic,  and  of  the  luxuriant 
design  of  the  early  Pisans.  Of  Giovanni  Pisano 
Ruskin  has  written:  "To  him  you  owe  .  . 
the  grace  of  Ghiberti,  the  tenderness  of  Raphael,  the 
awe  of  Michael  Angelo.  Second-rate  qualities  in  all 
three,  but  precious  in  their  kind."  Great  is  this 
mind  that  recognises  the  "  awe  "  of  Buonarroti  as  the 
second-rate  quality  of  a  great  man.  Ruskin's  mind 
was  in  fact  immortally  antique,  and  in  possession  of 
inseparable  Greek  antecedents,  whatever  it  found  to 
do  in  the  altering  world.  The  ethical  sermon  of  Val 
£ Arno  is  chiefly  on  that  text  of  Carlyle's  whereof  the 
warning  has  been  in  vain  : 

"This  idle  habit  of  accounting  for  the  'moral 
sense ' — the  moral  sense,  thank  God,  is  a  thing  you 
never  will  *  account  for.'  .  .  .  By  no  greatest 
happiness  principle,  greatest  nobleness  principle,  or 
any  principle  whatever,  will  you  make  that  in  the 
least  clearer.  .  .  .  Visible  infinites:  .  .  . 
say  nothing  of  them  ...  for  you  can  say 
nothing  wise." 


CHAPTER  XXIII 
"DEUCALION"    (1875-1883) 

IN  1875  Ruskin  prefaced  Deucalion  with  an  ironic 
sketch  of  the  unachieved  work  for  which  he  had  until 
then  collected  material :  an  analysis  of  the  Attic  art 
of  the  fifth  century  B.C.;  an  exhaustive  history  of 
northern  thirteenth-century  art;  a  history  of  Floren- 
tine fifteenth-century  art ;  a  life  of  Turner,  with 
analysis  of  modern  landscape  art;  a  life  of  Walter 
Scott ;  a  life  of  Xenophon,  with  analysis  of  the  gen- 
eral principles  of  education ;  a  commentary  on  Hesiod ; 
and  a  general  description  of  the  geology  and  botany 
of  the  Alps.  Meanwhile,  at  the  outset  of  this  little 
work,  chiefly  on  geology,  he  finds  place  for  a  brilliant 
essay  on  heraldic  colours,  fairly  proves  "gules"  to  be 
derived  from  the  Zoroastrian  word  for  rose,  and  not 
from  the  Latin  and  Romance  words  for  a  red  throat 
of  prey ;  quotes  St.  Bernard  on  this  accidental  sub- 
ject, and  corrects  the  "  badgers'  skins "  that  were 
hung  with  rams'  skins  upon  the  Tabernacle  of  Israel, 
to  seals' — from  the  sea-flocks  that  then  swam  the 
Mediterranean  by  the  city  of  Phocrea,  and  were  as- 
signed to  Proteus  in  the  Odyssey.  Deucalion,  Proser- 
pina, and  an  essay  on  birds — Love's  Meinie — are  the 
nearest  approach  that  other  labours  allowed  to  the 
works  on  natural  history  threatened,  with  a  smile — 
the  geology  and  botany  were  to  be  "  in  twenty-four 

233 


234  JOHN    RUSKIN 

volumes  " — and  they  are  strangely  complete,  full  of 
that  natural  fact  which  Raskin  has  acknowledged  as 
at  once  the  justification  and  the  judge  of  art,  the  be- 
ginning and  the  never-attainable  end.  It  is  perhaps 
with  a  contemptuous  consent  to  be,  by  some,  misread, 
that  in  his  contention  on  glaciers  with  Professor  Tyn- 
dall  he  often  slights  the  name  of  "  science  "  and  "  man 
of  science  "  ;  whereas  obviously  it  was  on  the  point 
of  science  that  issue  was  joined,  and  if  he  did  not  re- 
proach his  adversary  in  that  this  adversary  was  too 
little  and  not  too  much  a  man  of  science,  he  re- 
proached him  to  no  purpose.  Ruskin,  intending  to 
teach  the  form  of  mountains  as  they  have  stood  since 
man  was  man,  and  as  they  have  suffered  the  daily 
strokes  of  rains  or  have  carried  the  varying  burden 
of  snow,  makes  very  sure  of  the  little  he  has  to  tell 
of  the  anatomy  of  those  clothed  figures.  The  up- 
heaving forces  of  the  first  remote  period  and  the 
sculptural  forces  of  the  second  are  treated  with  the 
brevity  that  befits  their  unknown  ages  and  immeasur- 
able action ;  but  to  the  disintegrating  and  diffusing 
forces  of  the  earth  as  the  eyes  of  man  have  known 
it,  Ruskin  gives  the  study  of  many  a  year.  The 
human  race  has  had  many  and  many  centuries  in 
which  to  watch  the  Alps — and  has  made  small  use 
thereof;  but  out  of  those  ages  of  ages  a  little  half- 
century  has  been  saved — the  years  of  this  one  man's 
studies ;  and  all  that  fifty  years  can  tell,  in  pledge  of 
the  rest  unobserved  and  unrecorded,  was  read  by  him 
with  his  own  eyes  directly,  immediately,  without 
feigning,  without  use  of  the  reading  of  others,  with 


"DEUCALION"  235 

experiment  and  verification — experiment  on  the  spot, 
and  experiment  depending  upon  time.  All  that  fifty 
years  could  tell  to  this  watchful  intellect,  from  first 
to  last,  is  told  for  ever,  with  so  much  of  retrospect 
and  prophecy  as  a  slow  half-century  of  the  life  of 
rocks  affords.  Ruskin  has  been  for  this  space  of  time 
the  contemporary  of  the  Alps  and  of  the  Alpine  rivers, 
an  effectual  contemporary  who  measured  the  patience 
of  his  years  with  the  long  labours  of  weather  and  of 
gravitation  in  the  heights  and  valleys.  Of  the  years 
of  the  Alps  it  may  be  said  that  fifty  were  also  his. 
This  specimen  of  mountain  existence — this  great 
echantillon  and  sample  of  many  thousand  ages,  is,  as 
it  were,  saved  and  put  upon  human  record.  It  is 
saved  by  one  man's  watch  well  kept,  as,  in  another 
region  of  experience,  a  specimen  of  passionate  emo- 
tion, difficult  because  of  its  brevity,  as  the  movement 
of  mountains  is  difficult  because  of  its  length,  is  saved 
by  the  instant  watch  of  a  poet  well  kept,  and  put 
upon  human  record. 

Assuredly  it  is  not  too  much  to  claim  for  Ruskin's 
work  on  the  Alps  and  the  Jura  that  it  was,  conspicu- 
ously, and  unlike  that  of  other  glacialists,  all  observa- 
tion and  all  experiment ;  there  were,  in  its  course,  no 
guesses.  Therefore  he  corrected  some  inferences  of 
his  fellow-workers',  and  in  particular  ratified  with  a 
great  addition  James  Forbes's  discovery  of  the  general 
internal  thaw  of  Alpine  snows ;  Ruskin  it  is  who 
finds  an  argument  in  the  "subsiding  languor"  of  the 
flowing  glacier.  His  work  of  observation  is  necessarily 
accompanied  by  theory  and  by  calculation.  On  all 


236  JOHN    RUSKIN 

these  grounds  he  contends  with  Professor  Tyndall,  and 
the  contention,  to  be  properly  understood,  needs  much 
more  than  the  mere  reading  of  the  lecture,  even  with 
the  help  of  the  diagrams.  For  the  voice  must  have 
expressed  ironies  that  the  print  does  but  point  with  a 
note  of  admiration ;  moreover,  the  hearers  had  Mr. 
Tyndall's  assertions  that  ice  could  not  stretch 
fresh  in  their  memories,  and  were  ready  to  be  sur- 
prised by  Ruskin's  proof  that  ice,  in  fact,  could  stretch. 
Not  that  all  was  irony  ;  there  was  some  hard  hitting : 

"  His  incapacity  of  drawing,  and  ignorance  of  per- 
spective, prevented  him  from  constructing  his  dia- 
grams either  clearly  enough  to  show  him  his  own 
mistakes,  or  prettily  enough  to  direct  the  attention  of 
his  friends  to  them :  and  they  luckily  remain  to  us,  in 
their  absurd  immortality." 

In  regard  to  the  other  subject  specially  under  ex- 
amination— the  action  of  mountain  rivers — Ruskin 
has  concluded  that  the  cutting  or  deepening  work  of 
these  waters  was  done  under  conditions  unknown  to 
the  present  race  of  man,  and  that  there  has  been  no 
action  except  that  of  the  lifting  of  river-beds  and  the 
encumbering  of  water-courses,  since  the  earth  has 
been  man's  world.  But  this  judgment  upon  the  facts 
of  the  past — whether  measurably  or  immeasurably  far 
— serves  in  Ruskin's  studies  entirely  to  inform  the 
eyes  of  those  who  are  to  look  upon  the  aspect  of  the 
present,  and  who  need  that  their  simplicity  in  under- 
standing and  their  vigilance  in  seeing  should  be 
strengthened  by  knowledge.  It  is  the  present  in  the 


"  DEUCALION  "  237 

act  of  passage  that  the  eyes  are  to  be  made  ready  to 
perceive,  and  the  lesson  is  one  for  painters — indeed 
for  impressionists  :  the  mountain,  the  cleft,  the  water- 
courses with  their  past  so  sealed,  and  their  present  so 
slowly  to  be  known,  are  landscape  facing  the  simple 
eyes  of  a  painter.  At  the  close  of  his  subtle  and 
exact — essentially  most  logical — reasoning  on  geology 
the  author  of  Deucalion  refuses  the  name  of  philoso- 
pher, and  avers  that  his  teaching  is  that  of  the  village 
showman's  "  Look,  and  you  shall  see."  But  the  fact 
that  he  himself  has  laboured  so  explicitly  over  two 
but  partially  visible  things — geology  and  the  past — 
proves  how  much  he  himself  had  to  owe  to  the 
promptings  and  the  checkings  whereby  knowledge 
guards  simplicity,  and  how  little  he  would  trust  any 
student  but  a  genius  to  the  guidance  of  the  first  sim- 
plicity. It  is  surely  for  the  second  simplicity  that  he 
so  profoundly  prepares. 

It  must  not,  however,  be  forgotten  that  although 
Ruskin  worked  for  art  with  the  single  and  present  in- 
tention of  giving  authority  to  the  plain  observer,  he 
had  long  studied  the  Alpine  country,  as  he  tells  us, 
"  with  the  practical  hope  of  arousing  the  attention  of 
the  Swiss  and  Italian  peasantry  to  an  intelligent  ad- 
ministration of  the  natural  treasures  of  their  woods 
and  streams."  And  as  he  would  have  done  something 
to  arrest  the  distress  and  disease  of  the  peasantry  of 
the  Valais — people  who  hereditary  and  natural  adver- 
sity had  forced  to  grief  but  never  to  despair,  so  he 
had  offered  suggestions  for  the  protection  of  Verona 
from  the  turbulent  Adige  above  the  city,  and  for  the 


238  JOHN    RUSKIN 

succour  of  the  Romans  from  inundation.  The 
Italian  Government  spent  the  taxes  of  agriculture, 
however,  not  on  the  defences  of  river  cities  threat- 
ened by  mountain  streams,  but  in  the  decking  of 
Tuscan  cities  with  Parisian  boulevards. 

At  the  risk  of  dwelling  too  much  upon  the  mere 
controversy  of  Deucalion,  I  must  extract  the  brilliant 
phrase  of  rebuke : 

"The  delicate  experiments  by  the  conduct  of 
which  Professor  Tyndall  brought  his  audiences  into 
what  he  is  pleased  to  call  '  contact  with  facts '  (in 
olden  times  we  used  to  say  4  grasp  of  facts '  :  mod- 
ern science,  for  its  own  part,  prefers,  not  unreason- 
ably, the  term  '  contact,'  expressive  merely  of  oc- 
casional collision  with  them)  must  remain  inconclu- 
sive." 

Remember  always  that "  modern  science  "  is  reproved, 
throughout,  for  defect  of  science  ;  the  phrase  "  occa- 
sional collision  with  facts,"  in  derision  of  the  Pro- 
fessor's u  contact,"  is  exquisitely  and  characteristically 
witty.  In  truth,  whatever  may  be  the  chances  of 
war  as  to  the  case  in  controversy,  ill  befalls  Ruskin's 
antagonist  in  words :  he  has  the  scholarship,  the  in- 
vention, the  spirit,  the  delicacy,  and  the  luck  of  lan- 
guage. Take  another  reproof — that  which  he  ad- 
ministered to  the  "scientific  people"  who  had  taken 
the  name  of  anguis,  the  strangling  thing — a  name 
that  was  used  in  Latin  for  the  more  terrible  forms  of 
snake — to  give  it  "to  those  which  can't  strangle  any- 
thing. The  anguis  fragilis  breaks  like  a  tobacco-pipe ; 
but  imagine  how  disconcerting  such  an  accident  would 


"  DEUCALION  "  239 

be  to  a  constrictor !  "  This  occurs  in  the  fragmen- 
tary chapter  on  "  Living  Waves,"  making  one  volume 
with  Deucalion,  in  which  Ruskin  accompanies  (but 
without  contention,  in  this  case,  and  with  none  but 
harmonious  banter)  a  lecture  of  Professor  Huxley's. 
The  chapter  is  a  kind  of  spiritual  version  of  the  de- 
velopment of  species,  and  a  study  in  hereditary  im- 
agination. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 
"PROSERPINA"  (1875-1886) 

THIS  gentle,  ardent,  and  boyish  boy  must  have 
breathed  hard  and  close  over  his  collections  of  min- 
erals and  plants.  He  was  unsatisfied  with  knowledge, 
and  the  books,  few  and  arid,  in  which  he  looked  for 
figures  and  definitions,  although  good  in  the  main  and 
sure  of  his  respect,  failed  him  as  the  "  modern  sci- 
ence "  of  later  times  was  to  fail  him ;  he  charged 
them  with  futile  words  and  with  the  blanks,  instead 
of  answers,  that  met  some  of  his  pertinent  questions. 
What  he  began  over  a  boy's  cabinet  and  herbarium  he 
never  afterwards  forsook.  He  was  a  reader — and  an 
untiring  one — only  in  the  second  place ;  he  studied 
crystallisation  and  plants,  as  he  studied  the  spiritual 
nature  of  man,  at  first  hand.  Proserpina,  a  book  of 
botany  made  lovely,  was  written  "  to  put,  if  it  might 
be,  some  elements  of  the  science  .  .  .  into  a 
form  more  tenable  by  ordinary  human  and  childish 
faculties "  than  had  been  the  form  wherewith  the 
faculties,  human  and  childish  in  the  highest  sense,  of 
his  own  elect  boyhood  had  wrought  as  they  could, 
docile  and  zealous,  and  ill-supplied,  making  much  of 
little,  but  yet  often  disappointed.  Proserpina  had  for 
its  accessory  title,  "  Studies  of  Wayside  Flowers  while 
the  Air  was  yet  pure  among  the  Alps  and  in  the  Scot- 
land and  England  which  my  Father  knew."  It  is 
240 


"PROSERPINA"  241 

illustrated  by  the  writer's  noble  drawings.  The  par- 
ticular charm  of  the  book  is  that  it  is  a  real  medita- 
tion upon  the  theme,  the  work  of  one  who  lets  the 
reader  see  process  and  progress.  And  the  value  is  in 
this — that  the  questions  it  considers  are  problems  of 
the  flowers,  which  the  botany  book  left  him,  as  a  boy 
and  afterwards,  to  read  in  their  aspect  and  to  answer 
if  he  could.  The  first  chapter  is  full  of  questions, 
some  answered,  some  unanswered,  on  Moss — the  gold 
and  green  and  "  the  black,  which  gives  the  precious 
Velasquez  touches " ;  and  what  the  eye,  slightly 
helped  by  a  magnifying  glass,  sees  of  the  tiny  structure 
of  the  moss  of  walls  and  woods  is  described  with  in- 
finite grace.  The  chapter  on  the  Leaf  is  memorable 
for  a  paragraph  in  which  Ruskin  relates  his  misad- 
ventures amongst  the  authorities  on  botany  in  his 
search  of  instruction  as  to  the  nature  of  sap.  Sap 
was  not  in  the  index  of  Dresser,  nor  seve  in  that  of 
Figuier.  Lindley  told  him  of  "  the  course  taken  by 
the  sap  after  entering  a  plant."  "  My  dear  doctor, 
.  .  you  know,  far  better  than  I,  that  sap  never 
does  enter  a  plant  at  all ;  but  only  salt,  or  earth  and 
water,  and  that  the  roots  alone  could  not  make  it." 
Memorable  is  also  this  from  the  same  chapter — "  that 
vital  power,  which  scientific  people  are  usually  as 
afraid  of  naming  as  common  people  are  of  naming 
Death."  Ruskin  proposes,  as  he  goes,  a  new  nomen- 
clature, more  scholarly  and  more  strict — pure  Latin, 
pure  Greek  when  a  distinction  is  needed,  pure  Eng- 
lish concurrently.  Nor  will  he  have  nursery  litera- 
ture to  go  wild  with  a  semblance  of  precision,  uncor- 


242  JOHN    RUSKIN 

reeled.  This  he  rebukes  with  a  sweetness  that  the 
professors  do  not  get  from  him ;  but  when  a  lady, 
writing  pretty  lessons  for  children,  makes  an  easy 
show  of  defining  a  weed  as  a  plant  that  has  got  into 
the  wrong  place,  Ruskin  retorts,  "  Some  plants  never 
do.  Who  ever  saw  a  wood  anemone  or  a  heath 
blossom  in  the  wrong  place  ?  Who  ever  saw  a  nettle 
.  .  .  in  the  right  one  ?  "  He  cannot  know  much, 
by  the  way,  of  Swiss  country  households  in  spring 
who  has  not  seen  the  good  woman  cutting  young  net- 
tles into  her  apron,  for  the  soup ;  good  for  the  blood, 
and  an  excellent  vegetable  after  the  salt  food  of  a 
mountain  winter,  is  this.  But  has  Ruskin  or  any  one 
failed  to  welcome  that  early  little  tender  nettle  when 
the  March  earth  is  dark  brown  under  the  cloudy 
skies,  and  full  of  life,  and  along  the  foot  of  the 
hedgerows  the  sod  scarce  heaves  for  the  delicate  net- 
tle and  a  celandine  or  two?  Anon,  Proserpina  has 
the  "scentless  daisy,"  making  much  of  the  humility 
of  that  flower  of  light.  It  is  true  that  many  grown-up 
people  never  smell  a  daisy,  which  has  a  small  fra- 
grance close  to  itself;  but  had  Ruskin  for  once  for- 
gotten his  early  childhood  ?  These  are  but  accidents, 
and  they  merely  serve  to  make  somewhat  tedious  the 
perpetual  moral  lessons  :  for  an  example  or  a  warning 
to  go  with  every  flower  is  endurable  only  when  all 
the  facts  are  beyond  question.  What  is  important 
and  characteristic  is  the  original  and  final  resolve  of 
this  mind  to  confess  and  maintain  the  properties  that 
men  call  noble,  beautiful,  evil,  noisome,  ignoble,  to 
be  so  veritably,  in  the  sense  known  to  them  and  to 


"  PROSERPINA  "  243 

their  fathers,  absolutely — the  perception  of  such  qual- 
ities being  not  only  a  fact  to  be  reckoned  with,  at 
least  as  gravely  as  other  facts  are  reckoned  with,  but  a 
divine  power  of  the  human  spirit,  its  judgment  of  the 
world.  It  is  perhaps  an  unanswerable  question 
whether,  keeping  this  fast  hold  upon  the  idea  of  an 
essential  good,  Ruskin  has  not  followed  it  into  arbi- 
trary ways,  attributing  to  things  a  good  and  an  evil 
that  are  in  truth  nothing  but  the  tradition  of  men 
beset  by  the  collective  memory  of  their  primitive 
dangers  and  necessities,  and  by  the  individual  mem- 
ory of  their  own  race-dreams  in  childhood.  With  the 
moral  lesson  of  Proserpina,  only  once  or  twice  impor- 
tunate, and  always  noble,  severe,  and  benign,  are 
mingled  such  feats  of  illustration,  allusion,  and  in- 
tricate history  as  those  of  the  chapter  on  the  Poppy. 
Ruskin's  persevering  eye  saw  the  poppy  confused  with 
the  grape  by  the  Byzantine  Greeks,  and  the  poppy 
and  the  grape  with  palm  fruit ;  saw  the  palm,  in  the 
stenography  of  design,  pass  into  a  nameless  sym- 
metrical ornament  and  thence  into  the  Greek  iris 
(Homer's  blue  iris,  and  Pindar's  water-flag) ;  saw  it 
read  by  the  Florentines,  when  they  made  Byzantine 
art  their  own,  into  their  fleur-de-lys,  with  two  poppy- 
heads  on  each  side  of  the  entire  foil  in  their  finest 
heraldry ;  saw,  on  the  other  hand,  the  poppy  altering 
the  acanthus-leaf  under  the  chisel  of  the  Greek,  until 
the  northern  worker  of  the  twelfth  century  took  the 
thistle-head  for  the  poppy,  and  the  thistle-leaf  for  the 
acanthus,  the  true  poppy-head  remaining  in  the  south, 
but  more  and  more  confused  with  grapes,  until  the 


244  JOHN    RUSKIN 

Renaissance  sculptors  are  content  with  any  boss  full 
of  seed,  but  insist  always  upon  some  such  pod  as  an 
important  part  of  their  ornament — the  bean-pods  of 
Brunelleschi's  lantern  at  Florence,  for  example. 

"  Through  this  vast  range  of  art  note  this  singular 
fact,  that  the  wheat-ear,  the  vine,  the  fleur-de-lys,  the 
poppy,  and  the  jagged  leaf  of  the  acanthus-weed,  or 
thistle,  occupy  the  entire  thoughts  of  the  decorative 
workmen  trained  in  classic  schools,  to  the  exclusion 
of  the  rose,  the  true  lily,  and  other  flowers  of  luxury." 

A  mingling  of  subtle  history  with  morals  gives  us 
an  admirable  page  on  noble  Scottish  character  in  the 
chapter  on  the  Thistle.  In  that  on  the  Stem  we  have 
a  vigorous  instruction  upon  that  spiral  growing  which 
expresses  a  flame  of  life,  as  in  the  trunks  of  great 
chestnut-trees ;  of  that  subtle  action  Ruskin  has  drawn 
an  example  in  a  waste-thistle.  We  have  also  a  lesson 
upon  the  structural  change  of  direction  that  always 
takes  place  at  the  point  where  branches  begin  to  assert 
themselves.  Who  else  has  caused  us  so  to  feel  the 
wood,  its  direction,  its  law,  its  liberty,  its  seasons,  and 
the  years  of  its  life  ?  I,  as  one  of  so  many  whose 
parents  read  Modern  Painters  in  their  own  youth,  re- 
member my  father's  pointing  to  a  tree  and  telling  me 
that  whereas  the  Old  Masters  were  apt  to  draw  the 
stem  of  a  diminishing  or  tapering  form,  Ruskin  had 
made  us  all  to  see  that  no  stem  ever  grows  less  until 
it  puts  forth  a  branch,  and  no  branch  until  it  puts  forth 
a  twig.  And  ever  after  I  have  felt  the  stem  live,  as  I 
could  never  have  felt  it  had  I  continued  to  think  it  a 


"  PROSERPINA  "  245 

thing  so  paltry  that  it  could  diminish  as  it  grew.  Who 
but  Ruskin,  moreover,  has  had  this  sense  of  the  mathe- 
matics of  tender  things  ? — "  I  never  saw  such  a  lovely 
perspective  line  as  the  pure  front  leaf  profile,"  he  says 
of  some  violet. 

One  of  the  principal  intentions  in  the  writing  of 
Proserpina  was  the  planning — with  a  boy's  pleasure 
added  to  a  scholar's — of  the  new  terminology  that  was 
to  be  acceptable  to  students  in  the  five  languages — 
Greek,  Latin,  French,  Italian,  and  English  — 

u  I  shall  not  be  satisfied  unless  I  can  feel  that  the 
little  maids  who  gather  their  first  violets  under  the 
Acropolis  rock  may  receive  for  them  ^Eschylean  words 
again  with  joy.  I  shall  not  be  content,  unless  the 
mothers  watching  their  children  at  play,  in  the  Ceram- 
icus  of  Paris,  .  .  .  may  yet  teach  them  there 
to  know  the  flowers  which  the  Maid  of  Orleans  gath- 
ered at  Domremy.  I  shall  not  be  satisfied  unless  every 
word  I  ask  from  the  lips  of  the  children  of  Florence 
and  Rome  may  enable  them  better  to  praise  the  flow- 
ers that  are  chosen  by  the  hand  of  Matilda  and  bloom 
around  the  tomb  of  Virgil." 

Incidentally  we  have  a  brief  passage  of  autobiog- 
raphy telling  how  Ruskin  travelled  when  he  was  young, 
in  a  little  carriage  of  his  own,  full  of  pockets ;  and 
an  inn  is  mentioned  as  having  been  described  by 
Dickens  "  in  his  wholly  matchless  manner."  Wholly 
matchless ;  and  it  is  this  great  describer  who  says  so. 
Now  and  then  there  is  a  slight  shock  of  encounter  be- 
tween them.  At  Boulogne  Dickens  thanked  Heaven 
that  no  Englishman  had  been  up  the  tower  in  the  high 


246  JOHN    RUSKIN 

walled  town,  to  measure  it ;  at  that  time  Ruskin  was, 
in  fact,  measuring  towers.  Finally,  from  this  little 
book  on  Botany,  written  with  great  simplicity,  may  be 
taken  a  description  by  Ruskin  of  his  own  language : 
"  Honest  English,  of  good  Johnsonian  lineage,  touched 
here  and  there  with  colour  of  a  little  finer  of  Eliza- 
bethan quality." 


CHAPTER  XXV 

GUIDE  BOOKS 
"MORNINGS  IN  FLORENCE"  (1875-1877) 

"ST.  MARK'S  REST  "  (1877-1884) 
"THE  BIBLE  OF  AMIENS"  (1880-1885) 

Mornings  in  Florence  was  written  definitely  as  a 
guide-book — for  six  mornings  with  six  lessons  to  be 
learnt  in  them.  The  chapters  on  Giotto  are  of  the 
first  importance ;  the  reader  cannot  in  this  volume  be 
taken,  even  briefly,  through  Giotto  at  Padua  (1853- 
1860),  or  the  abundant  studies  of  Giotto's  works  at 
Assisi,  widely  scattered  through  Ruskin's  writings ; 
but  he  must  understand  Giotto  to  be  Ruskin's  original 
master  in  mediaeval  lineal  art,  as  Nicola  Pisano  in  me- 
diaeval sculpture ;  and  Florence  is  Giotto's  own  city, 
containing  his  work  done  at  all  dates  between  his 
twelfth  year  and  his  sixtieth.  Ruskin  teaches  us  how 
to  connect  the  work  of  his  best  time  with  his  work  in 
architecture,  and  with  the  Franciscan  Order.  To 
Giotto's  fresco  at  Santa  Maria  Novella  we  are  led 
through  "  a  rich  overture,  .  .  .  and  here  is  a 
tune  of  four  notes,  on  a  shepherd's  pipe."  The  theme 
is  the  meeting  of  St.  Joachim  and  St.  Anne,  as  it  would 
be  "  according  to  Shakespeare  or  Giotto."  There, 
too,  is  his  "  Presentation  of  the  Virgin  "  : 

247 


248  JOHN    RUSKIN 

"  The  boy  who  tried  so  hard  to  draw  those  steps 
in  perspective  had  been  carried  down  others,  to  his 
grave,  two  hundred  years  before  Titian  ran  alone  at 
Cadore.  But,  as  surely  as  Venice  looks  on  the  sea, 
Titian  looked  on  this,  and  caught  the  reflected  light 
of  it  for  ever." 

Colour,  too,  Giotto  founded.  But  all  he  began  of 
Medieval  art  was  the  continuation  of  Antiquity. 
His  painting  of  a  Gothic  chapel  Ruskin  affirms  to  be 
but  the  painting  of  a  Greek  vase  inverted,  with  the 
figures  on  the  concave,  as  those  on  the  convex,  sur- 
face, bent  in  and  out,  possibly  and  impossibly,  but 
always  "  living  and  full  of  grace  "  : 

"Every  line  of  the  Florentine  chisel  in  the  fif- 
teenth century  is  based  on  national  principles  of  art 
which  existed  in  the  seventh  century  before  Christ." 

The  chapter  called  "The  Shepherd's  Tower"  is 
also,  of  course,  on  Giotto ;  and  the  tower  was 
written  of  divinely  in  The  Seven  Lamps.  Here  we 
have  a  close  reading  of  the  sculptures  of  the  cam- 
panile, whether  Giotto's  own  or  Andrea  Pisano's — 
and  Ruskin  has  worked  delicately  in  distinguishing 
the  two.  Delicate  also  are  the  suggestions  of  the 
science  of  proportion  in  the  chapter  called  "The 
Vaulted  Book  " : 

"  Beauty  is  given  by  the  relation  of  parts — size  by 
their  comparison.  The  first  secret  in  getting  the  im- 
pression of  size  in  this  chapel  [the  Spanish  chapel, 
Santa  Maria  Novella]  is  the  ^proportion  between 
pillar  and  arch.  .  .  .  Another  great,  but  more 


GUIDE    BOOKS  249 

subtle  secret  is  in  the  /wequality  and  immeasurability 
of  the  curved  lines ;  and  the  hiding  of  the  form  by 
the  colour." 

St.  Mark's  Rest  has  in  part  the  character  of  a  re- 
cantation. As  the  Stones  of  Venice  praised  Titian, 
Tintoretto,  and  Giorgione,  so  St.  Mark's  Rest  turns 
with  an  impulse  of  recognition,  of  regret  for  time 
lost,  and  of  ardent  reparation  and  tenderness,  to  the 
work  of  Carpaccio.  If  it  were  not  nearly  a  cruel 
irreverence  to  say  so,  it  might  be  said  that  John  Rus- 
kin  too,  as  well  as  Europe,  had  had  his  Renaissance 
— although  his  Renaissance  was  controlled,  justified, 
and  maintained  in  the  dignity  of  incorruption,  unlike 
the  world's.  This  abundant  Paradise  of  Tintoretto, 
these  doges,  this  glory,  what  was  it  else,  even  though 
its  warmth  kept  it  clean  as  living  creatures  are  clean  ? 
Warm  in  the  colour  of  Titian,  this  Renaissance  was 
warmer  still  in  the  heart  of  Ruskin,  but  Renaissance 
it  was,  for  the  date  attests  it;  while  the  great 
painters  were  at  their  splendid  work,  architecture 
and  sculpture,  sealed  with  the  sign  of  the  Renais- 
sance, were  going  together  fast  to  indignity  and 
death. 

Ruskin,  like  Europe,  had  had  his  Primitive  days, 
his  trecento  and  his  quattrocento,  before  the  great 
hour  when  he  had  first  seen  Tintoretto  in  glory. 
The  universal  custom  of  change  passed  upon  him 
too.  Doubtless  he  never  knew — for  it  is  peculiar  to 
genius  not  to  know — how  much  his  lot  was  the  com- 
mon lot,  or  how  usual  it  is  with  men  and  women,  as 
well  as  with  mankind,  to  make  the  progress  from  a 


25O  JOHN    RUSKIN 

trecento  to  a  cinquecento  in  due  time.  What  befel 
him  was,  to  him,  unheard  of,  even  though  he  was 
giving  all  his  years  to  the  study  of  a  like  movement 
in  history,  for  he  brought  to  every  change  his  own  in- 
comparable freshness  and  the  surprises  of  an  authentic 
experience.  He  made  his  great  discoveries  with  an 
enterprising  spirit,  and  when  he  had  taken  his  fill  of 
his  Renaissance  he  retraced  his  own  eager  and  urgent 
footsteps,  and  sought  the  earlier  of  the  Venetian 
painters  (much  earlier  in  spirit  and  a  little  earlier  in 
time),  and,  far  behind  them,  the  mosaics  of  the 
Byzantine  Greeks.  It  was  not  that  he  had  not 
studied  these  in  the  past.  The  Stones  of  Venice 
proves  with  what  admiration  he  had  read  that  "  Bible 
of  Venice  " — St.  Mark's — on  his  first  visit  to  the 
city  of  "tremulous  streets";  but  now,  in  a  third 
phase  of  thought,  he  rediscovered  all  things,  being 
greatly  and  freshly  moved,  and  thinking,  like  the 
disciple  in  the  Imitation,  all  he  had  done,  until  then, 
to  be  nothing. 

The  reading-lesson  begins  at  the  farthest  side  of 
St.  Mark's  from  the  sea,  at  a  panel  set  horizontally — 
a  sculpture  of  twelve  sheep,  a  throne  between  six  and 
six,  a  cross  thereon,  a  circle,  and  within  the  circle  "  a 
little  caprioling  creature,"  the  Lamb  of  God.  This 
is  true  Greek  work,  the  work  of  the  teacher  of  the 
Venetian  (as  in  another  place  we  saw  the  Greek  work 
that  instructed  the  Pisan),  and  Ruskin  has  done  no 
more  important  work  in  the  history  of  art  than  this 
linking  of  the  antique  with  the  new.  Is  it  perhaps 
Gibbon  with  his  Fall  of  Rome  that  so  darkens  the 


GUIDE    BOOKS  25! 

air  of  some  eight  hundred  years  with  a  squalid  dust- 
storm  of  demolition  as  to  obscure  our  sight  of  the 
unquenched  lights  of  the  mind  of  man  ?  Ruskin 
joins  day  to  human  day  again,  as  the  days  of  nature 
and  the  sun  followed  one  another  undimmed. 

After  the  Byzantine  panel,  then,  come  the  two 
sculptures  that  are  the  earliest  real  Venetian  work 
found  by  Ruskin  in  his  search  amongst  Venetian 
stones.  These  are  no  longer  purely  symbolical,  no 
longer  "  a  kind  of  stone-stitching  or  samplerwork, 
done  with  the  innocence  of  a  girl's  heart,"  but 
ardently  and  laboriously  sculptural ;  it  is  Venetian 
work  of  the  early  thirteenth  century  ;  it  is  traceable 
through  sixteen  hundred  years  to  the  sculptors  of  the 
Parthenon ;  and  it  is  the  first  Venetian  St.  George. 

This  immortal  symbol-story — story  of  Perseus  be- 
fore it  was  a  story  of  a  saint — Ruskin  follows  up  to 
the  heights  of  the  great  time  of  sculpture  before  the 
close  of  the  fifteenth  century.  The  house  that  bore 
this  work  of  culmination  has  been  destroyed  since 
Ruskin  led  his  traveller,  with  so  much  delight,  to  the 
study  of  its  panel.  Not  so  the  Scuola  of  St.  Theo- 
dore, carrying  the  sculpture  of  the  mid-seventeenth 
century  with  its  Raphaelesque  attitude  and  its  drapery 
"  supremely,  exquisitely  bad  "  ;  nor  that  which  bore 
the  yet  later  decoration — the  last  of  all  done  by 
Venice  for  herself  and  not  for  tourists  :  "  the  last  im- 
aginations of  her  polluted  heart,  before  death." 

The  chapter  called  Shadow  on  the  Dial  shows  the 
moral  history  of  Venice  to  be  but  an  "  intense  ab- 
stract "  of  the  history  of  every  nation  in  Europe. 


252  JOHN    RUSKIN 

And  this  history  can  be  approached  by  a  modern  reader 
in  the  spirit  u  of  our  numerous  cockney  friends  "  who 
are  sure  that  the  fervour  of  Christian  Venice  "  was 
merely  such  a  cloak  for  her  commercial  appetite  as 
modern  church-going  is  for  modern  swindling  " ;  or 
else  in  a  spirit  of  respect  for  a  faith  that  was  but  "  an 
exquisite  dream  of  mortal  childhood  "  (and  this  Ruskin 
calls  the  "  theory  of  the  splendid  mendacity  of  Heaven 
and  majestic  somnambulism  of  man  ") ;  or,  thirdly, 
in  the  modest  and  rational  spirit  that  confesses  men  to 
be  in  all  ages  deceived  by  their  own  guilty  passions, 
but  not  altogether  deprived  of  the  perception  of  the 
rays  from  a  Divinity  in  nature  revealed  to  such  as  de- 
sire "  to  see  the  day  of  the  Son  of  Man."  In  this 
spirit  and  with  this  desire  does  Ruskin  begin  again  that 
history  of  Venetian  art  which  he  had  told  thirty  years 
earlier ;  begins  it  "  struck,  almost  into  silence,  by 
wonder  at  my  own  pert  little  Protestant  mind."  He 
leaves,  he  says,  the  blunder  of  his  youth  standing  in 
the  Stones  of  Venice,  like  Dr.  Johnson  repentant  in 
Litchfield  Market ;  but  the  blunder  seems  to  be  no 
more  than  a  neglect  of  St.  Mark  himself  and  of  his 
sepulture  in  the  cathedral,  with  all  that  the  possession 
of  this  national  treasure — his  body — imported  to  the 
Venetian  heart.  From  the  history  briefly  re-written  I 
take  this  lovely  phrase  in  description  of  the  first,  lowly, 
wooden  Venice  of  the  early  centuries ;  Ruskin  calls 
her  "  this  amphibious  city,  this  sea-dog  of  towns,  look- 
ing with  soft  human  eyes  at  you  from  the  sand." 
When,  in  course  of  time,  we  come  to  the  day  of  the 
press,  Ruskin  announces  "  printing,  and  the  universal 


GUIDE    BOOKS  253 

gabble  of  fools."  We  need  to  remember  his  former 
phrase  of  pity  for  peasants  who  have  no  books.  There 
is  a  beautiful  wayside  page  about  the  field  that  once 
spread  wild  flowers  to  the  sea-winds  before  every  col- 
oured church  in  Venice — before  St.  Mark's  itself. 
Ruskin  himself  had  passed  one  of  his  happiest  of  all 
hours,  looking  out  of  a  church  upon  a  flowering  field, 
in  England.  And  here,  also  by  the  way,  is  a  passage 
on  the  Gothic  sense  of  life  : 

"The  Northern  spiral  is  always  elastic. 
The  Greek  spiral  drifted  like  that  of  a  whirlpool  or 
whirlwind.     It  is  always  an  eddy  or  vortex — not  a 
living  rod  like  the  point  of  a  young  fern." 

The  remainder  of  the  historical  essay  is  a  reading 
of  the  mosaic  and  sculpture  of  St.  Mark's — the  codex 
of  the  religion  of  Venice. 

The  "  first  supplement "  has  for  title  "  The  Shrine 
of  the  Slaves  "  (the  Schiavoni),  and  is  a  guide  to  the 
principal  works  of  Carpaccio,  whom  Ruskin  calls 
"  the  wonderfullest  of  Venetian  harlequins."  Fore- 
most is  Carpaccio's  St.  George — "  you  shall  not  find 
another  piece  quite  the  like  of  that  little  piece  of 
work,  for  supreme,  serene,  unassuming,  unfaltering 
sweetness  of  painter's  perfect  art,"  Ruskin  says  of  the 
first  of  these ;  and  further  on  he  guides  us  through 
the  series  of  the  St.  Jerome  paintings.  Ruskin  studied 
Luini  at  Milan  alternately  with  Carpaccio  at  Venice, 
for  love  of  Luini  was  another  sign  of  Ruskin's 
reaction  against  his  former  Renaissance ;  and  the 
comparison  of  the  two  painters  is  one  of  the  loveliest 


254  JOHN    RUSKIN 

passages  of  Ruskin's  work  on  the  purer  Italian 
art. 

That  part  of  the  Bible  of  dmiens  which  places  the 
book  in  this  chapter  of  Guide-books  is  no  more  than 
the  after-part ;  and  the  volume  was  originally  intended 
to  form  one  of  the  series  bearing  the  general  title  Our 
Fathers  have  told  zw,  planned  to  present "  local  divisions 
of  Christian  history,"  and  to  gather,  "  towards  their 
close,  into  united  illustration  of  the  power  of  the 
Church  in  the  Thirteenth  Century."  The  whole 
project  was  never  fulfilled. 

The  cathedral  of  Amiens  stands  in  Ruskin's  book 
as  the  representative  work  of  the  Franks  in  this  north- 
western part  of  the  country,  and  the  centuries  that 
prepared  for  the  erection  of  such  a  sign  as  this — "  the 
Parthenon  of  Gothic  architecture  " — are  told  in  a  few 
chapters,  with  the  avowed  intention  of  showing  the 
student  the  virtues,  and  not  the  crimes,  of  the  remote 
past.  In  as  much  as  it  was  not  the  crimes  of  the  sons 
of  the  Frank  and  Goth  that  raised  this  cluster  of  flow- 
ered sculpture,  doubtless  Ruskin  works  duly  to  the 
purpose  of  his  book.  He  shows  us  the  few  centuries 
(three  after  the  birth  of  Christ)  during  which  the  peo- 
ple of  this  region  paid  a  belated  homage  to  the  gods 
of  Rome,  and  the  coming,  preaching,  and  martyrdom 
of  Saint  Firmin  in  little  Amiens,  seated  by  her  eleven 
streams,  as,  twelve  hundred  years  later,  the  carvings 
of  the  cathedral  were  to  record.  A  grave  for  the 
martyr  in  a  garden,  a  little  oratory  over  the  grave — 
and  here  was  erected  the  first  bishopric  on  the  soil  of 
Gaulj  and  when  the  Franks  themselves  came  from 


GUIDE    BOOKS  255 

the  north,  here  was  their  first  capital.  Two  legends 
are  told  in  this  sketch  of  history — the  story  of  St. 
Martin,  and  that  of  St.  Genevieve  :  St.  Martin,  the 
Roman  soldier,  who  in  the  thirty-first  winter  after  the 
coming  of  St.  Firmin,  when  men  were  dying  of  the 
frost,  cut  his  cloak  in  two  with  his  sword,  to  cover  a 
beggar ;  St.  Martin,  who  was  afterwards  Bishop  of 
Tours,  and  "  an  influence  of  unmixed  good  to  all 
mankind,  then  and  afterwards,"  and  who  took  his 
episcopal  vestment  from  his  shoulders  at  a  church 
ceremony,  as  he  had  rent  his  cloak,  for  gift  to  a  beg- 
gar. Ruskin  teaches  us  of  what  small  moment  it  is 
whether  these  things  came  to  pass  in  fact,  and  of  what 
great  moment  that  they  were  told.  There  is  also  the 
hobnobbing  of  the  same  St.  Martin,  at  table  opposite 
to  the  Emperor  of  Germany,  with  the  beggar  behind 
his  chair : 

"  You  are  aware  that  in  Royal  feasts  in  those  days 
persons  of  much  inferior  rank  in  society  were  allowed 
in  the  hall :  got  behind  people's  chairs,  and  saw  and 
heard  what  was  going  on,  while  they  unobtrusively 
picked  up  crumbs  and  licked  trenchers." 

The  legend  of  St.  Genevieve  is  of  the  wild  fifth 
century : 

"  Seven  years  old  she  was,  when,  on  his  way  to 
England  from  Auxerre,  Saint  Germain  passed  a  night 
in  her  village,  and  among  the  children  who  brought 
him  on  his  way  .  .  .  noticed  this  one — wider- 
eyed  in  reverence  than  the  rest ;  drew  her  to  him, 
questioned  her,  and  was  sweetly  answered  that  she 


256  JOHN    RUSKIN 

would  fain  be  Christ's  handmaid.  And  he  hung 
round  her  neck  a  small  copper  coin,  marked  with  a 
cross.  .  .  .  More  than  Nitocris  was  to  Egypt, 
more  than  Semiramis  to  Nineveh,  more  than  Zenobia 
to  the  city  of  palm-trees — this  seven  years  old  shep- 
herd maiden  became  to  Paris  and  her  France." 

The  description  of  the  cathedral  is  to  be  followed 
by  a  reading  of  the  stone  sculptures,  on  the  spot. 
But  I  must  extract  this,  on  the  wood-work : 

"  Aisles  and  porches,  lancet  windows  and  roses, 
you  can  see  elsewhere  as  well  as  here — but  such  car- 
penter's work  you  cannot.  It  is  late, — fully-devel- 
oped flamboyant  just  past  the  fifteenth  century — and 
has  some  Flemish  stolidity  mixed  with  the  playing 
French  fire  of  it.  ...  Sweet  and  young-grained 
wood  it  is :  oak  trained  and  chosen  for  such  work, 
sound  now  as  four  hundred  years  since.  Under  the 
carver's  hand  it  seems  to  cut  like  clay,  to  fold  like 
silk,  to  grow  like  living  branches,  to  leap  like  living 
flame." 

The  apse  at  Amiens,  we  learn,  is  the  first  thing 
done  perfectly  in  its  manner  by  Northern  Christen- 
dom ;  the  best  work  here  is  the  work  of  the  only  ten 
perfect  years,  so  that  from  nave  to  transept — built  no 
more  than  ten  years  later — there  is  a  lutle  change, 
"  not  towards  decline,  but  a  not  quite  necessary  pre- 
cision." 

"  Who  built  it,  shall  we  ask  ?  God  and  Man, — is 
the  first  and  most  true  answer.  The  stars  in  their 
courses  built  it,  and  the  Nations.  Greek  Athena 
labours  here — and  Roman  Father  Jove,  and  Guardian 


GUIDE    BOOKS  257 

Mars.  The  Gaul  labours  here,  and  the  Frank; 
knightly  Norman, — mighty  Ostrogoth, — and  wasted 
anchorite  of  Idumea." 

In  this  place  shall  be  extracted  a  page  that  the 
traveller  should  take  with  him  to  Lucca — the  descrip- 
tion of  that  tomb  of  Ilaria  del  Caretto,  the  work  of 
Jacopo  della  Quercia,  which,  seen  by  Ruskin  in  his 
youth  and  often  seen  again,  shared  with  a  height  of 
the  Alps,  a  valley  of  the  Jura,  an  allegory  of  Giotto, 
a  myth  of  Pallas,  the  rule  over  Ruskin's  life.  The 
passage  is  in  The  Three  Colours  of  Pre-Raphaelitism : 

"  This  sculpture  is  central  in  every  respect ;  being 
the  last  Florentine  work  in  which  the  proper  form  of 
Etruscan  tomb  is  preserved,  and  the  first  in  which  all 
right  Christian  sentiment  respecting  death  is  em- 
bodied. .  .  .  This,  as  a  central  work,  has  all 
the  peace  of  the  Christian  Eternity,  but  only  in  part 
its  gladness.  Young  children  wreath  round  the  tomb 
a  garland  of  abundant  flowers,  but  she  herself,  Ilaria, 
yet  sleeps;  the  time  is  not  yet  come  for  her  to  be 
awakened  out  of  sleep.  Her  image  is  a  simple  portrait 
of  her — how  much  less  beautiful  than  she  was  in  life 
we  cannot  know — but  as  beautiful  as  marble  can  be. 
And  through  and  in  the  marble  we  may  see  that  the 
damsel  is  not  dead,  but  sleepeth  :  yet  as  visibly  a  sleep 
that  shall  know  no  ending  until  the  last  day  break, 
and  the  last  shadow  flee  away ;  until  then,  she  shall 
not  return.  Her  hands  are  laid  on  her  breast — not 
praying — she  has  no  need  to  pray  now.  She  wears 
her  dress  of  every  day,  clasped  at  her  throat,  girdled  at 
her  waist,  the  hem  of  it  drooping  over  her  feet.  No 
disturbance  of  its  folds  by  pain  or  sickness,  no  binding, 
no  shrouding  of  her  sweet  form,  in  death  more  than  in 


258  JOHN    RUSKIN 

life.  As  a  soft,  low  wave  of  summer  sea,  her  breast 
rises ;  no  more :  the  rippled  gathering  of  its  close 
mantle  droops  to  her  belt,  then  sweeps  to  her  feet, 
straight  as  drifting  snow.  And  at  her  feet  her  dog 
lies  watching  her;  the  mystery  of  his  mortal  life 
joined,  by  love,  to  her  immortal  one.  Few  know, 
and  fewer  love  the  tomb  and  its  place — not  shrine, 
for  it  stands  bare  by  the  cathedral  wall.  .  .  .  But 
no  goddess  statue  of  the  Greek  cities,  no  nun's  image 
among  the  cloisters  of  Apennine,  no  fancied  light  of 
angel  in  the  homes  of  heaven,  has  more  divine  rank 
among  the  thoughts  of  men." 


CHAPTER  XXVI 
WFORS  CLAVIGERA"  (1871-1884) 

THIS  collection  of  papers  being  in  part  biographical, 
I  have  placed  it  somewhat  out  of  its  chronological 
turn,  so  as  immediately  to  precede  Prtsterita  in  closing 
the  volume. 

The  name  is  explained  by  Ruskin  at  the  outset. 
Fors  Clavigera  is  the  fate  or  fortune  that  bears  a  club, 
a  key,  a  nail,  signifying  the  deed  of  Hercules,  the 
patience  of  Ulysses,  the  law  of  Lycurgus. 

Of  the  seven  years'  volumes  of  the  first  series  I 
cannot  hope  to  make  even  the  all-imperfect  indication 
(exposition  it  can  hardly  be  called) — the  little  popular 
guide — that  I  have  attempted  in  the  case  of  the  other 
works  of  capital  importance.  The  running  theme 
of  this  book  is  too  various,  too  allusive ;  it  is  not  a 
book  as  the  others  are  books.  Unity  of  purpose  it 
has,  but  it  has  the  form  of  letters — Letters  to  the  Work- 
men and  Labourers  of  Great  Britain — written  accord- 
ing to  the  suggestion  of  the  changing  day.  The  initial 
motive  is  the  redress  of  social  misery — miseria  as  the 
Italians  call  it  par  excellence — that  is,  the  poverty  of 
classes,  the  poverty  of  millions,  indiscriminate  poverty : 
not  the  misery  which  is  either  deserved  or  undeserved, 
or  wherefrom  this  or  that  man  can  rise  by  using  the 
shoulders  of  those  who  cannot,  but  the  massive  pov- 
erty, the  collective. 

259 


26O  JOHN    RUSKIN 

"  For  my  own  part  [says  the  first  letter]  I  will  put 
up  with  this  state  of  things  not  an  hour  longer.  I 
am  not  an  unselfish  person,  nor  an  Evangelical  one ; 
I  have  no  particular  pleasure  in  doing  good ;  neither 
do  I  dislike  doing  it  so  much  as  to  expect  to  be  re- 
warded for  it  in  another  world.  But  I  simply  cannot 
paint,  nor  read,  nor  look  at  minerals,  nor  do  anything 
else  that  I  like,  .  .  .  because  of  the  misery  that 
I  know  of,  and  see  signs  of  where  I  know  it  not, 
which  no  imagination  can  interpret  too  bitterly." 

The  help  Ruskin  proposes  is,  to  show  the  causes, 
to  teach  a  remedy,  meanwhile  to  set  aside  the  greater 
part  of  his  own  wealth  for  the  succour  of  misery  in 
detail,  and  to  set  members  of  St.  George's  Guild  over 
the  acreages  of  the  poverty  of  cities.  Having  found 
himself  rich,  Ruskin  "  piously  and  prudently  began  to 
grow  poor  again,"  for  the  sake  of  the  poor,  giving 
one-tenth  of  his  fortune,  for  instance,  for  the  buying 
of  land  for  them.  He  began  to  be  poor.  It  would 
be  a  mockery  to  say  more  of  a  man  living,  as  he  said, 
"  between  a  Turkey  carpet  and  a  Titian,"  however 
laborious  were  his  days.  In  many  places  he  complains 
of  the  luxury  of  his  boyhood,  which  made  the  practice 
of  poverty  more  than  he  could  attempt.  He  had  al- 
ways been  generous  ;  giving  annuities  with  both  hands 
— the  case  of  Miss  Siddal  in  her  delicate  health  has 
been  made  public ;  but  he  reproached  himself  that  he 
had  not  the  courage  to  live  in  a  garret  or  make  shoes 
like  Tolstoy  (whom  he  had  not  read,  but  heard  of  with 
sympathetic  envy)  ;  but,  after  the  self-spoliation  of  his 
patrimony,  he  had  a  great  income  from  his  books.  St. 
George's  Guild,  the  members  whereof  gave  also  a 


"FORS  CLAVIGERA"  261 

tithe  of  their  revenues,  was  to  do  the  human  work  of 
keeping  the  garden  and  dressing  it,  fostering  fish  in 
the  waters,  and  flocks  and  herds  on  the  grass.  John 
Ruskin  with  his  own  hand  tried  to  tend  a  Surrey  stream 
(at  Carshalton)  and  tried  to  keep  a  little  piece  of  pave- 
ment clean  in  a  London  back  street,  and  his  under- 
graduates mended  the  famous  road  near  Oxford.  The 
Guild  was  to  succour  childhood  and  educate  it.  Ed- 
ucation was  one  of  his  chief  of  all  projects.  The  John 
Ruskin  school  at  Camberwell,  and  Whitelands  College 
at  Chelsea,  amongst  others,  keep  the  memory  of  his 
generosity  and  his  sympathy.  As  the  Guild  was  also 
to  see  that  the  poor  were  not  fined  for  their  poverty, 
he  himself  set  up  a  shop  in  Paddington  Street,  served 
by  his  own  servants,  to  sell  tea  in  small  quantities 
without  the  usual  disproportionate  profit  on  the  sub- 
division. But  for  lack  of  expenditure  on  glass,  brass, 
signs,  and  general  advertising,  the  people  were  slow  to 
buy  at  his  shop.  He  would  not  reconcile  himself  to 
the  fact  (made  hideous  by  exaggeration  in  every  street) 
that  a  thing  must  be  made  known  in  a  stupid  world. 
He  had  seen  it  written  by  "  a  first-rate  man  of  busi- 
ness "  that  "  a  bad  thing  will  pay,  if  you  put  it  properly 
before  the  public."  What  are  the  final  results  of  put- 
ting bad  things  "  properly  "  before  the  public  he  per- 
ceived, although  neither  the  first-rate  man  of  business 
nor  the  public  seemed  to  do  so  much.  In  regard  to 
the  spoliation  of  the  poor  and  foolish  by  more  direct 
means  than  the  proportional  increase  of  profit  on  small 
sales,  or  the  profit  generally  made  necessary  by  plate 
glass  and  gilt  letters,  John  Bright  had  said,  about  that 


262  JOHN    RUSKIN 

time,  that  false  weights  and  measures  were  not  so 
frequent,  nor  was  adulteration,  as  some  philanthropists 
thought,  and  that  therefore  legislation  had  better  let  the 
matter  alone  ;  moreover  that  "life  would  not  be  worth 
living  if  one's  weights  and  measures  were  liable  to  in- 
spection " ;  or  so  Ruskin  reports  that  deprecation  of 
"  interference  "  which  was  the  pestilence  of  home  af- 
fairs in  those  now  distant  days.  Ruskin  thought  so 
much  inquisition  ought  to  be  tolerable.  So  does  all 
England  think  to-day.  He  also  thought  that  the  poor 
ought  not  to  be  deprived  of  food  for  fear  (on  the  part 
of  tradesmen)  that  "  prices  would  go  down."  He  had 
seen  fish  sent  back  to  the  coast  from  a  London  market 
for  this  cause.  So,  too,  one  year  when  the  sun  had 
given  a  great  harvest  of  plums,  a  London  fruit-seller 
refused  to  sell  plums,  for  he  said,  with  emotion,  it 
would  be  a  pity  to  sell  them  for  less  than  so  much  a 
pound.  He  had  a  real  respect  for  the  plums.  Mean- 
while the  poor  streets  were  full  of  children  who  could 
buy  neither  fish  nor  plums  at  the  artificial  prices. 
With  these  matters  the  farms  of  the  Guild  were  to 
deal  as  well  as  they  might.  The  rents  of  St.  George's 
lands  were  to  be  lowered,  not  raised,  in  proportion  to 
improvements  made  by  the  tenant,  and  were  to  be  re- 
turned to  the  land  entirely  in  the  form  of  better  culture 
—not  necessarily  returned  to  the  piece  of  land  that 
produced  them,  but  applied  there  or  elsewhere.  The 
tenants  of  St.  George  would  have  no  more  right  to  ask 
what  was  done  with  their  fair  rents  than  the  tenants 
of  another  landlord  have  to  ask  about  his  race-horses. 
The  financial  work  of  the  Company  was  to  be  (largely 


"  FORS    CLAVIGERA  "  263 

stated)  the  endowment,  instead  of  the  robbery  by 
National  Debt,  of  children's  children  ;  and  endowment, 
not  taxation,  of  the  poor.  For  the  construction  of  the 
Society  ;  for  its  system  of  museums  ;  for  its  admirable 
plan  of  discouraging  the  "arts,"  and  especially  the  art 
of  fiction ;  for  the  laws  of  its  public  and  commercial 
economy  (entirely  gathered  from,  and  tested  by,  Eng- 
lish, Florentine,  and  Venetian  history,  and  obeyed, 
with  no  acknowledgment  to  Ruskin,  by  the  practice 
of  the  magistrates  of  our  own  day) ;  for  the  vast  scheme 
and  its  details,  in  a  word,  the  reader  must  consult  those 
parts  of  the  seven  years'  letters  that  deal  with  it.  Of 
himself  as  Master  Ruskin  wrote  : 

"  What  am  I  myself  then,  infirm  and  old,  who  take 
or  claim  leadership  .  .  .  ?  God  forbid  that  I  should 
claim  it ;  it  is  thrust  and  compelled  upon  me — utterly 
against  my  will,  utterly  to  my  distress,  utterly,  in  many 
things,  to  my  shame !  Such  as  I  am,  to  my 

own  amazement,  I  stand — so  far  as  I  can  discern — 
alone  in  conviction,  in  hope,  and  in  resolution,  in  the 
wilderness  of  this  modern  world.  Bred  in  luxury, 
which  I  perceive  to  have  been  unjust  to  others,  and 
destructive  to  myself;  vacillating,  foolish,  and  mis- 
erably failing  in  all  my  own  conduct  in  life — and 
blown  about  hopelessly  by  storms  of  passion — I,  a 
man  clothed  in  soft  raiment, — I,  a  reed  shaken  with 
the  wind —  !  " 

To  this  passion  of  grief  how  shall  any  one  desire 
that  consolation  had  been  brought  ?  Not  for  passion, 
but  for  the  lack  of  it,  he  reminds  us,  are  men  con- 
demned— "  because  they  had  no  pity."  To  wish  him 
less  mercy,  to  wish,  with  the  vain  wish  of  retrospec- 


264  JOHN    RUSKIN 

tion,  that  Ruskin  had  found  some  solace  in  the  midst 
of  the  martyrdom  of  his  convictions,  is  forbidden  us. 

Let  this  be  borne  in  mind  by  those  who  care  any- 
thing for  the  attempt — the  conception,  the  project, 
and  the  failure  of  the  Company  :  it  was  not  intended 
to  be  a  curative  measure ;  it  was  not  to  cure  drunken- 
ness or  to  give  alms,  but  to  change  the  motive  and 
action  of  the  responsible  social  world. 

The  knotty  parts  of  Political  Economy  must  re- 
main knotty  for  ordinary  minds.  Ruskin  thinks  his 
way  through  them  as  though  they  were  easy  to  him. 
In  reading  Mill,  on  the  other  hand,  you  find  him 
making  his  way  with  difficulty.  The  mere  reader  may 
choose  his  teachers,  but  has  the  right  to  ask  that  they 
shall  speak  to  him  in  pure  and  exact  English.  This 
Ruskin  does  and  Mill  does  not.  There  is  nothing 
left,  worth  saying,  of  some  of  Mill's  famous  defini- 
tions after  Ruskin  has  translated  them.  Those  who 
call  Ruskin's  system  "sentimental"  (intending  to  in- 
sult it)  and  think  they  have  done  enough,  cannot  have 
so  much  as  set  out  upon  the  road  of  his  argument. 
It  is  true  that  he  here  and  there  digresses,  as,  for  in- 
stance, to  tell  us  that  ministers  of  religion  had  been 
so  loud  against  almsgiving  one  winter  that  when  he 
wanted  to  give  a  penny  he  first  looked  up  and  down 
the  street  to  see  if  a  clergyman  were  coming.  But 
the  mental  work,  when  it  is  in  progress,  is  close.  His 
quarrel  with  the  science  of  Political  Economy,  as  it  is 
taught  by  its  popular  professors,  is  that  it  is  not  scien- 
tific enough,  as  his  quarrel  with  the  science  of  some 
geologists  and  of  some  botanists  is  to  the  same  pur- 


"FORS  CLAVIGERA"  265 

pose.  Although  Ruskin  says  nothing  to  show  that  he 
recognises  the  identity,  he  holds  much  in  common 
with  Mill,  for  example,  the  national  loss  that  is  the 
price  of  luxury  ;  Ruskin,  however,  shows  the  mischief 
as  well  as  the  loss.  But  he  is  alone  in  stating  Eng- 
land to  be  a  poor  nation.  Beside  Mill's  cautious 
chapters  on  Loans  Ruskin  places  this: 

"There  is  nothing  really  more  monstrous  in  any 
recorded  savagery  .  .  .  than  that  governments 
should  be  able  to  get  money  for  any  folly  they  choose 
to  commit  by  selling  to  capitalists  the  right  of  taxing 
future  generations  to  the  end  of  time.  All  the  cruel- 
lest wars  inflicted,  all  the  basest  luxuries  grasped  by  the 
idle  classes,  are  thus  paid  for  by  the  poor  a  hundred 
times  over." 

Let  me  also  extract  this,  which  the  reader  will  re- 
place in  the  chain  of  argument : 

"  Those  nations  which  exchange  mechanical  or  ar- 
tistic productions  for  food  are  servile,  and  necessarily 
in  process  of  time  will  be  ruined." 

And  in  the  pages  on  commercial  economy,  the  reader 
will  probably  find  that  Fawcett  merits  Ruskin's  con- 
temptuous correction  where  he  states  the  "  interest  of 
money  "  to  consist  of  three  parts,  and  the  first  to  be 
"Reward  for  Abstinence."  Abstinence,  as  Ruskin 
shows  us,  will  not  make  the  uneaten  cake  any  the 
larger  after  it  has  lain  by,  postponed,  for  a  year  or 
ten. 

It  is  less  from  the  incompressible  main  argument 
than  from  the  by-ways  of  the  letters  on  Economy  that 


266  JOHN    RUSKIN 

the  present  pages  shall  be  illustrated.  For  instance, 
Ruskin  commends  a  communism  in  all  things,  even 
joys:  " There  is  in  this  world  infinitely  more  joy 
than  pain  to  be  shared,  if  you  will  only  take  your 
share  "  ;  such  a  partaking  of  joys  not  at  first  ours  be- 
ing the  perfection  of  charity,  and  strangely  enough, 
though  a  happy  task,  more  difficult  than  many  a  sad 
one.  This  is  from  one  of  those  digressions  on  edu- 
cation which  grow  more  and  more  frequent  in  the 
volumes  of  Fors : 

"  You  little  know  ...  by  what  constancy  of 
law  the  power  of  highest  discipline  and  honour  is 
vested  by  Nature  in  the  two  chivalries — of  the  Horse 
and  the  Wave." 

Of  his  own  early  travels  by  carriage  with  his  father  in 
England  he  says  that  as  soon  as  he  could  perceive  any 
political  truth  at  all,  he  perceived  that  it  was  probably 
much  happier  to  live  in  a  small  house,  "and  have 
Warwick  Castle  to  be  astonished  at,  than  to  live  in 
Warwick  Castle  and  have  nothing  to  be  astonished  at." 
This  sums  up,  to  one  who  will  think  of  it,  much  of 
the  teaching  of  Ruskin  on  national  economy  : 

"  That  rain  and  frost  of  heaven ;  and  the  earth 
which  they  loose  and  bind  ;  these,  and  the  labour  of 
your  hands  to  divide  them,  and  subdue,  are  your  wealth 
forever.  .  .  .  You  can  diminish  it,  but  cannot 
increase  ;  that  your  barns  should  be  filled  with  plenty 
— your  presses  burst  with  new  wine — is  your  blessing  ; 
and  every  year — when  it  is  full — it  must  be  new ; 
and,  every  year,  no  more.  This  money,  which  you 


"FORS  CLAVIGERA"  267 

think  so  multipliable,  is  only  to  be  increased  in  the 
hands  of  some,  by  the  loss  of  others.  The  sum  of  it, 
in  the  end,  represents,  and  can  represent,  only  what  is 
in  the  barn  and  winepress." 

Not  all  the  letters  are  full  of  this  matter.  Some  of 
them  are  written  from  Pisa,  Rome,  Lucca,  or  Verona  ; 
some  are  historical  studies ;  one  has  a  quiet  and  lovely 
page  on  the  cultivated  lands  under  Carrara. 

"  On  each  side  of  the  great  plain  is  a  wilderness  of 
hills,  veiled  at  their  feet  with  a  grey  cloud  of  olive- 
woods  ;  above,  sweet  with  glades  of  chestnut ;  peaks 
of  more  distant  blue,  still,  to-day,  embroidered  with 
snow,  are  rather  to  be  thought  of  as  vast  precious  stones 
than  mountains,  for  all  the  state  of  the  world's  palaces 
has  been  hewn  out  of  their  marble." 

From  Verona  Ruskin  writes  of  the  breaking  of  a 
thunder-shower  over  the  city,  at  the  outer  gates  of  the 
Alpine  valleys,  and  the  slipping  into  the  Lombard 
rivers  of  a  million  of  sudden  streams.  Why  did  not 
the  Italians  gather  the  water  for  their  towns  ?  Some 
men  were  standing  idle  in  the  piazze  (machines  doing 
such  work  as  there  was  in  their  stead),  others  were 
employed  to  "  dash  to  pieces  "  the  Gothic  of  Tuscany 
and  Lombardy,  and  others  to  stick  bills  bearing  "  Rome 
or  death "  upon  the  ancient  walls  of  Venice,  but 
there  was  no  time  nor  money  for  saving  the  subalpine 
valleys  from  flood.  At  the  same  time  Ruskin  gives  a 
simple  lesson  to  engineers  on  the  making  of  reservoirs, 
and  to  writers  (Charles  Reade  is  evidently  aimed  at) 
on  the  description  of  them.  They  should  be  wide,  not 


268  JOHN    RUSKIN 

deep  ;  the  gate  of  a  dry  dock  can  keep  out  the  Atlantic, 
to  the  necessary  depth  of  feet  and  inches  ;  "  the  depth 
giving  the  pressure,  not  the  superficies."  Thence  he 
passes,  like  Napoleon  after  making  roads,  but  to  bet- 
ter purpose,  to  the  education  of  girls ;  and  describes 
with  an  exquisiteness  that  at  once  quickens  and  guards 
the  sweet  and  humorous  and  modest  phrases,  Carpac- 
cio's  painting  of  the  young  princess.  It  is  hard  upon 
two  American  girls,  whom  Ruskin  saw  travelling  from 
Venice  to  Verona  with  the  blinds  of  the  railway  car- 
riage closed,  to  rebuke  them  by  the  contrast  of  their 
mind  and  manners  with  St.  Ursula's.  Incidentally 
Ruskin  quotes  much  from  Marmontel,  a  writer  of 
the  late  eighteenth  century  to  whom  he  claims  a  kind 
of  resemblance  of  sympathy,  but  whom  the  reader  is 
free  to  think  he  honours  over  much. 

The  twenty-fourth  letter,  which  is  the  first  dated 
from  Corpus  Christi  College,  is  the  last  which  be- 
gins "  My  Friends  " :  not  one  of  the  workmen  he 
addressed  had  sent  him  a  friendly  word  in  answer. 
"  Nor  shall  I  sign  myself '  faithfully  yours '  any  more ; 
being  very  far  from  faithfully  my  own,  and  having 
found  most  other  people  anything  but  faithfully 
mine."  To  the  other  money-troubles  expressed  in 
this  and  other  works  of  about  this  time  begin  to  be 
added  those  doubts  as  to  the  lawfulness  of  taking  in- 
terest which  Ruskin  discusses  with  a  correspondent. 
The  coin  itself  is  the  subject  of  one  letter,  which  has 
a  fine  lesson  on  the  florin,  and  a  gay  one  on  the 
sovereign  (the  sovereign  of  1872,  and  what  have  we 
not  come  to  since  then  ?  )  : 


"  FORS    CLAVIGERA  "  269 

"  As  a  design — how  brightly  comic  it  is  !  The 
horse  looking  abstractedly  into  the  air,  instead  of 
where  precisely  it  would  have  looked,  at  the  beast  be- 
tween its  legs :  St.  George,  with  nothing  but  his 
helmet  on  (being  the  last  piece  of  armour  he  is  likely 
to  want),  putting  his  naked  feet,  at  least  his  feet 
showing  their  toes  through  the  buskins,  well  forward, 
that  the  dragon  may  with  the  greatest  convenience 
get  a  bite  at  them ;  and  about  to  deliver  a  mortal  blow 
at  him  with  a  sword  which  cannot  reach  him  by  a 
couple  of  yards, — or,  I  think,  in  George  III.'s  piece, 
with  a  field-marshal's  truncheon.  Victor  Carpaccio 
had  other  opinions  on  the  likelihood  of  matters  in  this 
battle.  His  St.  George  exactly  reverses  the  practice 
of  ours.  He  rides  armed,  from  shoulder  to  heel,  in 
proof — but  without  his  helmet.  For  the  real  difficulty 
in  dragon-fights  ...  is  not  so  much  to  kill  your 
dragon  as  to  see  him ;  at  least  to  see  him  in  time,  it 
being  too  probable  that  he  will  see  you  first.  Carpac- 
cio's  St.  George  will  have  his  eyes  about  him,  and  his 
head  free  to  turn  freely.  .  .  .  He  meets  his 
dragon  at  the  gallop,  catches  him  in  the  mouth  with 
his  lance.  .  .  .  But  Victor  Carpaccio  had  seen 
knights  tilting ;  and  poor  Pistrucci  .  .  .  had 
only  seen  them  presenting  addresses  as  my  Lord 
Mayor,  and  killing  turtle  instead  of  dragons." 

What  a  perceptive  and  penetrative  imagination  as  to 
any  encounter  with  dragons  that  may  befall — not 
Carpaccio's  imagination  only,  but  Ruskin's  !  How 
much  dramatic  possession  of  the  matter  !  And  what 
sense  of  dragons  !  Emerson  had  been  the  only  man 
who  believed  Ruskin's  story  of  Turner — that  he  had 
darkened  his  own  picture  lest  it  should  take  the  light 
out  of  Lawrence's;  yet  Emerson  joined  those  who 


270  JOHN    RUSK.IN 

rejoice  in  discrediting,  when  he  took  some  less  than 
noble  pleasure  in  exposing  St.  George  as  a  fraudulent 
bacon-factor  who  was  lynched,  not  martyred,  and  de- 
served it.  Strange  subject  for  triumph  or  scorn  !  If 
St.  George  had  been  honoured  for  his  fraud,  like  an 
American  millionaire,  the  laugh,  such  as  it  is,  might 
have  been  against  his  votaries  ;  but  seeing  that  he  was 
honoured  for  his  honour  (whether  by  error  or  not) 
how  thin  and  unintelligent  is  the  malice  of  the  jest ! 
Needless  to  say,  however,  the  St.  George  believed  to 
have  been  martyred  under  Diocletian  was  not  the 
George  of  the  bacon  contract,  later  a  heretic  bishop, 
and  lynched.  The  symbol  of  the  dragon  did  not  for 
some  ages  enter  into  the  story  of  the  canonised  St. 
George.  On  this  subject  it  is  that  Ruskin  speaks  his 
only  reverent  word  (or  nearly  the  only  one)  of  a  Ger- 
man author,  calling  Goethe  "  the  wise  German." 

In  the  prelude  to  the  study  of  Scott  which  fills  some 
part  of  Fors,  is  this  passage  on  some  of  the  results  of 
the  work  of  "tale-tellers,"  those  who  had  dynasties: 

"  Miss  Edgeworth  made  her  morality  so  imperti- 
nent that,  since  her  time,  it  has  only  been  with  fear 
and  trembling  that  any  good  novelist  has  ventured  to 
show  the  slightest  bias  in  favour  of  the  ten  command- 
ments. Scott  made  his  romance  so  ridiculous  that 
since  his  day  one  can't  help  fancying  helmets  were 
always  paste-board,  and  horses  were  always  hobby. 
Dickens  made  everybody  laugh  or  cry,  so  that  they 
could  not  go  about  their  business  till  they  had  got 
their  faces  in  wrinkles ;  and  Thackeray  settled  like  a 
meat-fly  on  whatever  one  had  got  for  dinner,  and 
made  one  sick  of  it." 


"FORS  CLAVIGERA"  271 

It  is  from  Fors  Clavigera  that  we  first  learn  the 
story  of  John  Ruskin's  childhood,  severely  governed 
in  the  strange  sense  of  the  "  Evangelical  "  sect  of  that 
time — that  children  should  be  deprived  by  compulsion 
of  what  their  elders  amply  permitted  themselves, 
should  see  self-indulgence  at  table  in  those  they  were 
taught  to  respect,  but  should  be  allowed  no  dainties 
for  themselves.  A  fasting  father  and  mother  setting 
the  example  one  can  understand,  but  not  this  mute 
promise  of  a  groaning  board  in  the  future,  when 
father  and  mother  should  be  dead.  Ruskin  acqui- 
esces, more  or  less,  in  the  discipline.  It  was  Dickens 
who  made  things  more  equitable  ;  but  the  equity  was 
established  in  indulgence,  not  in  fasting.  Precious 
are  the  fragments  of  biography  as  the  letters  go  on, 
and  most  mournful,  as  :  "  My  father  and  mother  and 
nurse  are  dead,  and  the  woman  I  hoped  would  have 
been  my  wife  is  dying."  We  find  him  remembering 
amid  the  golden-lighted  whitewash  of  a  poor  room  at 
Assisi  (he  not  only  studied  Giotto  and  the  poverello 
St.  Francis  there,  but  maintained  a  Friar)  the  poor 
room  of  his  aunt  at  Croydon ;  at  Notre  Dame  glean- 
ing the  remnants  of  old  work  among  the  fine  fresh 
restorations,  having  it  cast,  and  drawing  it ;  on  the 
Pincio  with  his  arm  about  the  neck  of  a  frate  who 
wished  to  kiss  his  hand.  We  find  him  (by  a  memory 
of  what  had  happened  in  1858)  at  Turin,  over- 
whelmed by  a  sense  of  the  "  God-given  power  "  of 
Veronese,  and  listening  in  a  Waldensian  chapel  to  "  a 
little  squeaking  idiot,"  with  a  congregation  of  "  seven- 
teen old  women  and  three  louts."  Their  preacher 


272  JOHN    RUSKIN 

told  them  they  were  the  only  "  people  of  God "  in 
Turin.  It  had  been  the  turning  point  of  twenty 
years  of  thought  to  John  Ruskin,  and  more  than 
twenty  years  "  in  much  darkness  and  sorrow "  fol- 
lowed it,  but  during  this  sermon  he  had  renounced 
the  sect  of  his  youth. 

Ruskin's  diction  is  noble  in  vigour  and  high  in  vi- 
tality in  this  work  of  impassioned  intellect,  Fan  Clav- 
igera.  Not  here  does  he  force  with  difficulty  the  tired 
and  inelastic  common  speech  to  explain  his  untired 
mind,  as  in  some  pages  of  Modern  Painters;  not  here 
are  perorations  of  eloquence  over-rich  ;  not  here  con- 
structions after  Hooker,  nor  signs  of  Gibbon.  All 
the  diction  is  fused  in  the  fiery  life,  and  the  lesser 
beauties  of  eloquence  are  far  transcended.  During 
the  publication  of  these  letters  the  world  told  him, 
now  that  he  could  express  himself  but  could  not  think, 
and  now  that  he  was  effeminate.  But  he  was  giving 
to  that  world  the  words  of  a  martyr  of  thought,  and 
the  martyr  was  a  man. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

"  PR.ETERITA  "  (1885-1889) 

THE  limits  of  a  brief  expository  essay  debar  me 
from  giving  so  much  as  an  outline  of  small  out-lying 
books,  early  pamphlets  and  articles,  and  later  lectures, 
public  letters,  and  such  minor  incidental  work  as  the 
notes  on  the  Royal  Academy  of  six  years ;  the  notes 
on  the  Turner  drawings ;  the  ten  conversation-lec- 
tures to  little  school-girls  on  the  elements  of  crystal- 
lisation, published  under  the  title  Ethics  of  the  Dust 
(1866)  ;  The  Laws  of  Fesole  (1877-1878)  ;  The  Pleas- 
ures of  England  (1885),  which  were  the  last  of  the 
Slade  lectures;  Hortus  Inclusus  (1874-1887) — the  let- 
ters to  Miss  Beever  and  her  sister,  who  collected  the 
volume  Frondes  Agrestes  from  Modern  Painters;  the 
studies  of  the  architecture  of  the  Cistercian  Order; 
and  the  re-published  volume  of  early  poetry.  Arrows 
of  the  Chace  and  On  the  Old  Road  contain  respectively 
the  public  letters  and  the  magazine  papers,  collected. 
There  remains,  therefore,  only  the  book  of  autobiog- 
raphy, the  last  page  whereof  was  the  last  written  by 
Ruskin  for  the  world. 

The  friendship  with  Turner  in  Ruskin's  youth  is 
presented  to  us  as  a  relation  warm  and  equal  in  the 
elder  generation ;  but  as  to  himself  Ruskin  records 
little  but  slight  discouragement  from  the  painter  he 
loved.  Turner  seems  to  have  been  principally  anxious 

273 


2J4  J°HN    RUSKIN 

that  the  young  author  should  give  his  parents  no  anx- 
iety on  his  travels  :  "  They  will  be  in  such  a  fidge 
about  you,"  we  find  Turner  saying  dubiously  on  his 
own  doorstep  when  Ruskin  was  to  travel  alone.  "  It 
used  to  be,  to  my  father,  l  yours  most  truly,'  and  to 
me  *  yours  truly.' '  Ruskin's  first  defence  of  the  old 
man  (it  was  against  a  criticism  in  Blackwood'i  Maga- 
zine, in  1836,  and  Ruskin  was  seventeen)  is  acknowl- 
edged with  thanks  but  without  praise,  and  Turner 
adds,  "  I  never  move  in  these  matters."  We  read  of 
Ruskin's  own  study  of  drawing.  He  learnt,  whilst 
yet  in  his  teens,  of  Copley  Fielding, 

"  To  wash  colour  smoothly  in  successive  tints,  to 
shade  cobalt  through  pink  madder  into  yellow  ochre 
for  skies,  to  use  a  broken  scraggy  touch  for  the  tops 
of  mountains,  to  represent  calm  lakes  by  broad  strips 
of  shade  with  lines  of  light  between  them,  .  .  . 
to  produce  dark  clouds  and  rain  with  twelve  or  twenty 
successive  washes,  and  to  crumble  burnt  umber  with 
a  dry  brush  for  foliage  and  foreground." 

But  this  was  a  pupil  who  was  discovering  a  manner 
of  measuring  the  degrees  of  blue  in  the  sky,  and  who 
was  acquiring  the  only  true  temper  of  solitude — un- 
like, he  found  later,  to  Carlyle's : 

"That  the  rest  of  the  world  was  waste  to  him  un- 
less he  had  admirers  in  it,  is  a  sorry  state  of  sentiment 
enough.  .  .  .  My  entire  delight  was  in  observing 
without  being  myself  noticed.  ...  I  was  abso- 
lutely interested  in  men  and  their  ways,  as  I  was  in- 
terested in  marmots  and  chamois,  in  tomtits  and  trout. 
If  only  they  would  stay  still  and  let  me  look  at  them, 
and  not  get  into  their  holes  and  up  their  heights." 


"  PRJETERITA  "  275 

The  most  moving  passage  in  the  first  volume  shows 
the  opening  to  Ruskin  of  the  "  Gates  of  the  Hills," 
on  his  "  impassioned  petition  "  to  his  parents  that  the 
way  of  travel  might,  for  the  first  time,  lie  towards  the 
Alps  — 

"  Gates  of  the  Hills ;  opening  for  me  to  a  new  life — 
to  cease  no  more,  except  at  the  Gates  of  the  Hills 
whence  one  returns  not." 

It  is  from  the  slight  record  of  the  books  taken  into 
the  travelling-carriage  that  I  quote  this  magnificent 
image  of  the  great  balance  of  Johnson's  style : 

"  I  valued  his  sentences  not  primarily  because  they 
were  symmetrical,  but  because  they  were  just,  and 
clear;  .  .  .  it  is  a  method  of  judgment  rarely 
used  by  the  average  public,  who  .  .  .  are  as 
ready  with  their  applause  for  a  sentence  of  Macaulay's, 
which  may  have  no  more  sense  in  it  than  a  blot 
pinched  between  doubled  paper,  as  to  reject  one  of 
Johnson's,  .  .  .  though  its  symmetry  be  as  of  thun- 
der answering  from  two  horizons." 

We  find  Ruskin,  "  of  age,"  making  drawings  rather 
in  imitation  of  Turner,  and  "  out  of  his  own  head," 
than  in  the  copying  of  Copley  Fielding ;  drawings 
with  rocks,  castles,  and  balustrades.  He  was  aware, 
throughout  his  life,  of  his  lack  of  inventive  imagina- 
tion :  "  I  can  no  more  write  a  story  than  compose  a 
picture,"  he  says  in  reference  to  his  story  for  children, 
The  King  of  the  Golden  River.  It  was  a  bit  of  ivy 
round  a  thorn  stem  that  first  drew  his  eyes  to  the  life 
of  things,  and  next  he  studied  an  aspen-tree  against 


2j6  JOHN    RUSKIN 

the  sky  on  a  road  through  Fontainebleau ;  in  a  later 
page  he  avows  that  his  drawings  of  Venetian  stones 
were  "  living  and  like."  And  with  these  traces  of 
travel  are  the  records  of  Beauvais,  Bourges,  Chartres, 
Rouen,  a  magnificent  chapter  on  Geneva  and  the 
Rhone,  and  on  his  discovery  of  the  Campo  Santo  at 
Pisa,  and  of  Lucca,  to  be  beloved  for  the  rest  of  life. 
Here  was  the  tomb  of  Ilaria  del  Caretto,  and 

"  Here  in  Lucca  I  found  myself  suddenly  in  the 
presence  of  twelfth  century  buildings,  originally  set  in 
such  balance  of  masonry  that  they  could  all  stand 
without  mortar;  and  in  material  so  incorruptible, 
that  after  six  hundred  years  of  sunshine  and  rain,  a 
lancet  could  not  now  be  put  between  their  joints." 

In  the  Pisan  cemetery  Ruskin  drew,  seated  on  a 
scaffold  level  with  the  frescoes : 


u 


I,  ...  being  by  this  time  practiced  in  deli- 
cate curves,  by  having  drawn  trees  and  grass  rightly, 
got  far  better  results  than  I  had  hoped,  and  had  an 
extremely  happy  fortnight  of  it.  For  as  the  triumph 
of  Death  was  no  new  thought  to  me,  the  life  of  her- 
mits was  no  temptation." 

At  Florence  he  made  friends  with  the  Friars  at 
Fiesole  (he  insists  upon  "  Fesole,"  with  an  acute  ac- 
cent that  has  no  existence  in  the  Italian  language), 
for  the  Friars  had  not  yet  been  expelled  by  law,  and 
there  remained  some  living  ancient  stones  in  Italy, 
later  destroyed,  or  restored,  or  dead,  dark,  and  dull 
within  museums.  His  principal  work  was  at  Santa 
Maria  Novella  and  San  Marco,  and  his  master,  Fra 


"PRJETERITA"  277 

Angelico — "  Lippi  and  Botticelli  being  still  far  beyond 
me." 

Why  did  Ruskin  never  go  to  Spain  ?  He  owns 
that  he  admires  in  himself  the  "  simplicity  of  affec- 
tion "  that  kept  him  in  love  year  by  year  with  Calais 
sands,  and  the  Narcissus  meadows  of  Vevay,  and  the 
tomb  at  Lucca,  whereas  he  heard  even  more  than  the 
customary  praises  (through  his  father's  wine-making 
relations)  of  the  sierras  and  of  the  architecture.  It 
seems  that  he  decided,  on  the  evidence  of  "  the  abso- 
lutely careful  and  faithful  work  of  David  Roberts," 
that  Spanish  and  Arab  buildings  were  merely  luxurious 
in  ornament,  and  inconstructive  in  character.  He 
went  no  further;  and  had,  besides,  more  than  enough 
on  the  ways  of  study  that  knew  his  feet.  It  is  in 
allusion  to  Spain,  however,  that  in  this  second  volume 
of  Praterita  we  find  the  first  signs  of  his  vigilance 
in  other  things  than  the  leaves  of  nature  or  the  arts 
of  man.  It  is  in  the  chapter  called  "The  Feasts 
of  the  Vandals,"  which  names  the  guests  received  in 
the  Ruskins'  house.  Amongst  then  were  the  daugh- 
ters of  the  wine-selling  partner,  M.  Domecq,  in  those 
days  married. 

"  Elise,  Comtesse  des  Roys,  and  Caroline,  Princesse 
Bethune,  came  with  their  husbands  .  .  .  partly 
to  see  London,  partly  to  discuss  with  my  father  his 
management  of  the  English  market :  and  the  way  in 
which  these  lords,  virtually,  of  lands  both  in  France 
and  Spain,  though  men  of  sense  and  honour;  and 
their  wives,  though  women  of  gentle  and  amiable  dis- 
position, .  .  .  spoke  of  their  Spanish  labourers 
and  French  tenantry,  with  no  idea  whatever  respect- 


278  JOHN    RUSKIN 

ing  them  but  that,  except  as  producers  by  their  labour 
of  money  to  be  spent  in  Paris,  they  were  cumberers 
of  the  ground,  gave  me  the  first  clue  to  the  real 
sources  of  wrong  in  the  social  laws  of  modern  Europe. 
It  was  already  beginning  to  be,  if  not  a  ques- 
tion, at  least  a  marvel  with  me,  that  these  graceful 
and  gay  Andalusians,  who  played  guitars,  danced 
boleros,  and  fought  bulls,  should  virtually  get  no  good 
of  their  beautiful  country  but  the  bunch  of  grapes  or 
stalk  of  garlic  they  frugally  dined  on  ;  that  its  precious 
wine  was  not  for  them,  still  less  the  money  it  was  sold 
for;  but  the  one  came  to  crown  our  Vandalic  feasts, 
and  the  other  furnished  our  .  .  .  walls  with 
pictures,  our  .  .  .  gardens  with  milk  and  honey, 
and  five  noble  houses  in  Paris  with  the  means  of 
beautiful  dominance  in  its  Elysian  fields." 

Ruskin's  friendship  with  Dr.  John  Brown,  a  friend 
of  his  father's  race  and  native  town,  and  therefore,  he 
says,  best  of  friends  for  him,  is  conspicuous  in  the 
second  volume.  Of  the  long  friendship  with  Carlyle 
there  is  little  trace,  and  that  little  a  report  not  of 
Ruskin's  but  of  Carlyle's  youth.  Margaret  was  the 
daughter  of  the  schoolmaster  who  gave  to  Carlyle  his 
first  valid  lessons  in  Latin.  She  lived  to  be  twenty- 
seven.  Carlyle  told  Ruskin,  "  The  last  time  that  I 
wept  aloud  in  the  world,  I  think  was  at  her  death." 

During  the  journeys  told  in  the  earlier  pages  of  this 
volume,  Ruskin  was  meditating  the  second  volume  of 
Modern  Painters.  Sydney  Smith  was  amongst  the 
most  eagerly  expectant.  Ruskin  says : 

u  All  the  main  principles  of  metaphysics  asserted  in 
the  opening  of  Modern  Painters  had  been,  with  con- 


"  PRJETERITA  "  279 

elusive  decision  and  simplicity,  laid  down  by  Sydney 
himself  in  the  lectures  he  gave  on  Moral  Philosophy 
at  the  Royal  Institution  in  the  years  1804—5—6,  of 
which  he  had  never  himself  recognised  the  impor- 
tance." 

The  reader  may  remember,  I  will  add,  that  Sydney 
Smith  was  slightly  contemned  as  a  sentimentalist  for 
his  advocacy  of  the  cause  of  "  climbing  boys."  At 
any  rate,  those  readers  who  care  for  children  and  for 
the  English  language  may  have  in  their  minds  the 
phrases  whereby,  in  the  course  of  his  plea  for  legisla- 
tion in  that  matter,  he  rebuked  the  world  of  his  day 
for  its  profligate  indifference. 

To  the  signature  "  Kataphusin,"  used  in  the  earliest 
of  Ruskin's  essays,  had  followed  that  of  "  A  Graduate 
of  Oxford,"  and  the  work  so  signed  was  looked  for, 
as  Ruskin  himself  says,  "  by  more  people  than  my 
father  and  mother " ;  but  Sydney  Smith  was  the 
earliest  admirer  in  high  places.  Ruskin's  fame  was 
already  old,  and  he  still  young,  when  on  the  Lake  of 
Geneva  he  met  his  American  reader,  Charles  Eliot 
Norton — "  my  second  friend  after  Dr.  John  Brown  : 
my  first  real  tutor."  This  friend  was  of  his 
own  age,  but  a  greater  reader,  Ruskin  found,  and  a 
better  scholar.  In  1888,  writing  Prester'ita  at  Sallen- 
ches,  he  says  in  regard  to  this  friendship  : 

"  I  can  see  them  at  this  moment,  those  mountain 
meadows,  if  I  rise  from  my  writing-table  .  .  . ; 
yes,  and  there  is  the  very  path  we  climbed  together, 
apparently  unchanged.  But  on  what  seemed  then 
the  everlasting  hills,  beyond  which  the  dawn  rose 


280  JOHN    RUSKIN 

cloudless,  and  on  the  heaven  in  which  it  rose,  and  on 
all  that  we  that  day  knew,  of  human  mind  and  virtue 
— how  great  the  change,  and  sorrowful,  I  cannot 
measure." 

There  is  a  great  deal,  in  these  last  of  all  volumes, 
about  preachers  to  whose  sermons  Ruskin  listened  in 
his  youth,  and  about  monks  and  friars  whom  he  then 
visited  abroad.  And  in  this  connexion  I  must  extract 
a  charming  passage  from  one  of  the  letters,  of  thirty 
years  later,  to  Miss  Beever,  from  Assisi : 

"  The  sacristan  gives  me  my  coffee  for  lunch  in  his 
own  little  cell,  looking  out  on  the  olive  woods ; 
and  then  perhaps  we  go  into  the  sacristy  and 
have  a  reverent  little  poke-out  of  relics. 
Things  that  are  only  shown  twice  in  the  year  or  so, 
with  fumigation  !  all  the  congregation  on  their  knees 
— and  the  sacristan  and  I  having  a  great  heap  of  them 
on  the  table  at  once,  like  a  dinner-service  ! " 

But  he  lived  to  see  another  kind  of  Italy.  He  hoped 
never  again  to  hear  the  summer  evening  noises  of  an 
Italian  town  as  they  appalled  his  indignant  ears  in  one 
of  his  last  Italian  summers — a  summer  of  the  long 
foretold  and  long  desired  days  of  political  unity.  Tear- 
ings  to  pieces  and  restorations  he  was  compelled  to  see 
under  the  various  political  conditions  of  half  a  century. 
More  inevitable  things  than  these,  in  all  countries, 
displeased  him ;  howbeit  he  resigned  himself,  many 
years  after  the  invention  of  railways,  to  main  lines. 
It  was  the  by-ways  of  the  rail  that  he  thought  unneces- 
sary and  unnecessarily  destructive : 


"PRJETERITA"  281 

"  There  was  a  rocky  valley  between  Buxton  and 
Bakewell,  divine  as  the  vale  of  Tempe;  you  might 
have  seen  the  gods  there  morning  and  evening — Apollo 
and  all  the  sweet  Muses  of  the  Light.  You  enter- 
prised  a  railroad,  .  .  .  you  blasted  its  rocks  away, 
.  .  and  now  every  fool  in  Buxton  can  be  at 
Bakewell  in  half  an  hour,  and  every  fool  in  Bakewell 
at  Buxton." 

The  last  phrase  of  the  last  volume  (1889)  closes  a 
remembrance  of  Fonte  Branda,  the  waters  Dante  re- 
membered in  the  streamless  place.  With  Charles 
Norton  Ruskin  had  drunk  of  those  sweet  waters  under 
the  arches  that  hooded  the  head  of  Dante ;  and,  as  it 
chances,  these  last  of  all  words  composed  by  Ruskin 
end,  in  Dante's  way,  with  "  the  stars."  "  Mixed  with 
the  lightning,"  he  says  of  the  fireflies  of  one  of  those 
Italian  summer  nights,  "  and  more  intense  than  the 
stars."  After  this  he  wrote  no  more.  But  the  last 
extract  here  shall  be  from  the  notes  on  a  Turner  ex- 
hibition in  1878,  written  just  before  the  gravest  illness 
of  his  life  : 

"  Oh  that  someone  had  told  me  in  my  youth,  when 
all  my  heart  seemed  to  be  set  on  these  colours  and 
clouds  that  appear  for  a  little  while  and  then  vanish 
away,  how  little  my  love  of  them  would  serve  me 
when  the  silence  of  lawn  and  wood  in  the  dews  of 
morning  should  be  completed ;  and  all  my  thoughts 
should  be  of  those  whom,  by  neither,  I  was  to  meet 
more ! " 


CHRONOLOGY 


The  kindness  of  Mr.  Ruskin's  friend  and  mine,  Mr.  S.  C. 
Cockerell,  gives  me  the  advantage  of  borrowing,  with  some  slight 
abbreviations,  his  excellent  biographical  Chronology. 

1819. — Feb.  8.  John  Ruskin  born;  54.Hunter  Street,  Brunswick 
Square. 

1822. — To  Perth.     Portrait  by  Northcote. 

1823. — Summer  tour  in  S.  W.  of  England.  Removed  to  28  Herne 
Hill. 

1824. — To  the  Lakes,  Keswick,  Perth. 

1825. — To  Paris,  Brussels,  Waterloo. 

1826. — Wrote  first  poem  "  The  Needless  Alarm."  Summer  tour 
to  the  Lakes  and  Perth.  Began  Latin. 

1827. — Summer  at  Perth. 

^828. — Summer  in  West  of  England.  His  cousin  Mary  Richard- 
son adopted  by  his  parents. 

1829. — Summer  in  Kent. 

1830 Tour  to  the  Lakes.     Began  Greek.     Copied  Cruikshank. 

1831. — First  drawing  lessons  from  Runciman.  Summer  tour  in 
Wales.  Began  mathematics. 

1832. — Summer  tour  in  Kent. 

1833. — First  Turner  study  in  Rodgers'  Italy.  Tour  to  the  Rhine 
and  Switzerland.  Copied  Rembrandt.  Went  to  day-school. 

1834. — First  study  of  Alpine  geology.  First  published  writings. 
Summer  tour  in  West  of  England. 

1835. — Tour  to  Switzerland  and  Italy.     First  published  poems. 

1836. — Visit  of  the  Domecqs.  Drawing-lessons  from  Copley 
Fielding.  Wrote  Defence  of  Turner.  Tour  to  the  South 
Coast  after  matriculating  at  Christ  Church. 

1837. — Went  into  residence  at  Oxford.  Summer  tour  to  the  Lakes 
and  Yorkshire.  Began  Poetry  of  Architecture,  and  The  Con- 
vergence of  Perpendiculars, 


284  CHRONOLOGY 

1838. — Wrote    essay,     Comparative    Advantages  of  Music  and 

Painting.     Tour  to  the  Lakes. 
1839. — Recited  Newdigate  prize  poem  at  Commemoration.     Tour 

to    Cheddar,   Devon,   and    Cornwall.     Read   with    Osbornc 

Gordon. 
1840. — Threatened  with  consumption.     By  Loire  and  Riviera  to 

Rome. 
1841. — At  Naples,  Bologna,  Venice,  Basle.     Under  treatment  at 

Leamington.     Drawing-lessons  from  Harding. 
1842. — Passed   final   examination,   and  took   B.A.   degree.     Saw 

Turner's  Swiss  sketches.     Study  of  ivy  from  nature.     Tour  to 

France  and  Switzerland.     Wrote  Modern  Painters,  vol.  L 
1843. — Removed  from  Herne  Hill  to  Denmark  Hill.     Took  M.A. 

degree. 
1844. — Tour    in    Switzerland.       Studied    Old    Masters    at    the 

Louvre. 
1845. — First  tour  alone.    To  Pisa.    Study  of  Christian  art  at  Lucca 

and  Florence.     To  Verona.     Study  of  Tintoretto  at  Venice. 

Wrote  Modern  Painters,  vol.  ii. 
1846. — Through  France  and  the  Jura  to  Geneva,  Mont  Cenis,  and 

Italy. 

1847. — Tour  in  Scotland. 
1848. — Married    at    Perth.      Attempted    pilgrimage    to    English 

cathedrals.    To  Amiens,  Paris,  and  Normandy.    Seven  Lamps, 

at  31  Park  Street 

1849. — Tour  through  Switzerland.     Winter  at  Venice. 
1850. — Studied  architecture   and   missals  at  Venice.     Stones  of 

Venice,  vol.  i.,  at  Park  Street 
1851. — Notes    on    Sheepfolds.     Acquaintance   with    Carlyle    and 

Maurice.     Defence  of  the   Pre-Raphaelites.    Tour  through 

France   and  Switzerland.      Winter  and  following  spring  at 

Venice.  (Dec.  19.  Turner  died.) 
1852. — Stones  of  Venice,  vols.  ii.  and  iii. 
1853. — With  Dr.  Acland  and  Millais  at  Glcnfmlas.  Lectures, 

Architecture  and  Painting,  at  Edinburgh. 
1854. — With  parents  in  Switzerland.     Drawing.     Working  Men's 

College  inaugurated.     Lectures  to  decorative  workmen. 
1855. — Academy  Notes  begun.     Studied  shipping  at  Deal.     Mod- 
ern Painters,  vols.  iii.  and  iv. 


CHRONOLOGY  285 

1856. — Address  to  workmen  of  the  Oxford  Museum.  Tour  in 
Switzerland.  Elements  of  Drawing. 

1857. — Lecture  to  Archit.  Assoc.,  Imagination  in  Architecture. 
Address  to  St.  Martin's  School  of  Art.  Lecture,  Political 
Economy  of  Art,  at  Manchester.  Address  to  Working  Men's 
College.  Tour  in  Scotland.  Arranged  Turner  drawings  at 
National  Gallery. 

1858. — Lecture,  Conventional  Art,  S.  Kensington.  Lecture,  Work 
of  Iron,  Tunbridge  Wells.  Official  Report  on  Turner  be- 
quest. Address,  Study  of  Art,  St.  Martin's  School.  Tour 
alone  in  Switzerland  and  Italy,  studying  Veronese  at  Turin. 
Inaugural  address  to  Cambridge  School  of  Art. 

1859. — Lecture,  Unity  of  Art,  Royal  Institution.  Lecture,  Mod- 
ern Manufacture  and  Design,  Bradford.  Address,  Switzer- 
land, Working  Men's  College.  Last  tour  with  parents,  in 
Germany. 

1860.— Address,  Religious  Art,  Working  Men's  College.  Modern 
Painters,  vol.  v.  Unto  this  Last,  at  Chamouni. 

1 86 1. — Gave  Turner  drawings  to  Oxford  and  to  Cambridge.  Ad- 
dresses, St.  George's  Mission,  Denmark  Hill ;  Three  Twigs, 
Royal  Institution ;  Illuminated  Missals,  Burlington  House. 
Tour  in  Savoy.  Munera  Pulveris. 

1862. — Studied  Luini  at  Milan. 

1863. — Studied  Limestone  Alps.  Lecture,  Stratified  Alps,  Royal 
Institution. 

1864. — Lecture  at  Working  Men's  College.  His  father  died. 
Lecture,  Traffic,  Bradford.  Lectures,  King's  Treasuries  and 
Queen's  Gardens,  and  address  at  Grammar  School,  Man- 
chester. 

1865. — Lecture,  Work  and  Play,  Camberwell.  Addresses  at 
Working  Men's  College.  Address  to  R.I.B.A.,  Study  of 
Architecture.  Lecture,  War, Woolwich  Royal  Military  College. 

1866. — With  friends  in  Switzerland.  Study  of  geology  and  bot- 
any. Spoke  at  meeting  of  the  Eyre  Defence  Committee. 

1867. — Time  and  Tide.  Rede  Lecture.  Lecture,  Modern  Art, 
Royal  Institution. 

1868. — Lecture,  Mystery  of  Life,  Dublin.  Address,  Three-legged 
Stool  of  Art,  Jermyn  Street.  Tour  in  Belgium  and  France 
with  Professor  Norton  and  others. 


286  CHRONOLOGY 

1869. — Lecture,  Flamboyant  Architecture  of  the  Somme,  Royal 
Institution.  Lecture,  Greek  Myths  of  Cloud  and  Storm,  Uni- 
versity College.  Lecture,  Hercules  of  Camarina,  South 
Lambeth  School  of  Art.  To  France,  Switzerland,  Verona, 
and  Venice.  Elected  Slade  Professor.  Lecture,  Future  of 
England,  Woolwich. 

1870. — Lecture,  Verona  and  its  Rivers,  Royal  Institution.  First 
and  Second  Slade  courses  at  Oxford.  To  Switzerland  and 
Italy.  Study  of  coins  at  the  British  Museum.  Lecture,  Story 
of  Arachne,  Woolwich. 

1871. — Fort  Clavigera,  No.  I.  Slade  course  on  landscape. 
Dangerous  illness  at  Matlock.  Tour  to  Lakes  and  Scotland. 
Endowment  of  Mastership  of  Drawing,  at  Oxford.  Elected 
Lord  Rector  of  St.  Andrew's  University.  His  mother  died. 

1872 — Lecture,  The  Bird  of  Calm,  Woolwich.  Slade  courses, 
Eagle's  Nest  and  Ariadne  Florentina.  In  residence  at 
Corpus  Christi  College.  In  Italy.  First  residence  at  Brant- 
wood. 

1873. — Re-elected  Slade  Professor.  Paper,  Nature  and  Authority 
of  Miracle,  Grosvenor  Hotel.  Lectures,  Robin,  Swallow, 
and  ChoAgh,  Oxford  and  Eton.  Slade  course,  Vald'Arno. 

1874. — To  Rome  and  Sicily,  studied  Giotto  at  Assisi.  Slade 
course,  Alps  and  Jura,  and  Schools  of  Florentine  Art. 
Lecture,  Botticelli,  at  Eton. 

1875. — Lecture,  Glacial  Action,  Royal  Institution.  Slade  course, 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds.  Lecture,  Spanish  Chapel,  Eton. 

1876. — Lectures,  Precious  Stones,  Christ's  Hospital;  Minerals, 
Woolwich.  Posting  tours  in  England.  To  Switzerland. 

1877. — Studied  Carpaccio  at  Venice.  Speech  to  Society  for  Pre- 
vention of  Cruelty  to  Animals,  Herne  Hill.  Lecture,  Yewdale 
and  its  Streamlets,  Kendal.  Slade  course,  Readings  in  Mod- 
ern Painters.  Lecture,  Streams  of  Westmoreland,  Eton. 

1878. — At  Windsor  Castle;  at  Hawarden.  Turner  exhibition  in 
Bond  Street  Illness  at  Brantwood.  Whistler  versus  Ruskin 
trial. 

1879.— Received  Prince  Leopold  at  St.  George's  Museum,  Shef- 
field. 

1880. — Lectures,  Snakes,  London  Institution;  Amiens,  Eton.  To 
Abbeville,  Amiens,  Beauvais,  Chartres,  Rouen. 


CHRONOLOGY  287 

1882, — Copied  in  National  Gallery.  In  France  and  Italy.  Met 
Miss  Alexander  at  Florence.  Lecture,  Cistercian  Architecture, 
London  Institute. 

1883. — Slade  course,  Art  of  England.  Lecture,  Francesca  Alex- 
ander and  Kate  Greenaway,  Kensington.  Tour  to  Scotland. 
Lecture,  Sir  Herbert  Edwards,  Coniston. 

1884. — Lecture,  The  Storm  Cloud,  London  Institution.  Lecture 
to  Academy  Girls.  Slade  course,  The  Pleasures  of  England. 

1885. — Address  to  Society  of  Friends  of  Living  Creatures,  Bed- 
ford Park. 

1886.— Praterita. 

1887. — A  posting  journey  in  England. 

1888. — To  Beauvais,  the  Jura,  Venice,  Berne.  Last  No.  of 
Prater  it  a. 

1900. — January  20.     Death  at  Brantwood,  Coniston. 


Index 


Air,  The  Queen  of  the,  181. 

Amiens,  The  Bible  of,  254. 

Aratra  Pentelici,  200. 

Architecture  and  Painting,  Lec- 
tures on,  121  ft  seq. 

Ariadne  Florentina,  217. 

Arrows  of  the  Chace,  273. 

Art,  Lectures  on,  186. 

Art,  The  Political  Economy  of, 
129. 

Bible  of  Amiens,  The,  254. 
Botticelli,  221. 
Brown,  Dr.  John,  278. 
Browning,  127. 
Byron,  5,  127. 

Carlyle,  8,  152,  274,  278. 

Carpaccio,  249,  253. 

Claude,  10,  n,  15,  17,  30,  33, 

52'7'- 

Cobbett,  William,  151. 
Coleridge,  127. 
Constable,  John,  52. 
Coreggio,  77,  87. 
"  Cornhill  Magazine,  The,"  145, 

156. 

Crabbe,  127. 
Crown  of  Wild  Olive,  The,  171. 

Dante,  187. 

Deucalion,  233. 

Dickens,  Charles,  4,    35,    228, 

245,  270. 

Domenichino,  22. 
Drawing,  Elements  of,  125. 
Diirer,  Albert,  71. 
Dust,  Ethics  of  the,  273. 

Eagle's  Nest,  The,  205. 
Edgeworth,  Maria,  270. 


Elements  of  Drawing,  125. 
Elements  of  Perspective,  128. 
Eliot,  George,  58. 
Emerson,  269. 

England,  The  Pleasures  of,  273. 
Ethics  of  the  Dust,  273. 

Fawcett,  Henry,  265. 
Fesole,  The  Laws  of,  273. 
Fiction  Fair  and  Foul,  58. 
Fielding,  Copley,  274. 
Florence,  Mornings  in,  247. 
Forbes,  James,  235. 
Fors  Clavigera,  259. 
"  Eraser's  Magazine,"  3,  157. 

Gainsborough,  n,  187. 
Gautier,  Th6ophile,  16. 
Goethe,  270. 
Golden  River,  The  King  of  the, 

275- 
Gibbon,  Edward,  16,  32,  250, 

272. 

Giorgione,  76. 
Giotto,  247. 

Guild,  St.  George's,  260. 
Guinicelli,  Guido,  158. 

Holbein,  65,  68,  221. 
Hooker,  Richard,  45,  272. 
Hortus  Inclusus,  273. 
Hunt,  Holman,  117,  120. 
Hunt,  William,  126. 
Huxley,  Professor,  239. 

Johnson,  Samuel,  46,  246,  252, 

275- 

Keats,  127. 
King  of  the  Golden  River,  The, 

275- 
Kingsley,  Charles,  53. 


289 


290 


INDEX 


Landseer,  Sir  Edwin,  43,  73. 
Laws  of  Fesole,  The,  273. 
Lectures  on    Architecture   anJ 

Painting,  121  et  seq. 
Lectures  on  Art,  186. 
Lilies,  Sesame  and,  158,  176. 
Longfellow,  127. 
Love's  Meinie,  233. 
Lowell,  J.  R.,  127. 

Macau  lay,  275. 

Marmontel,  Jean  Francois,  159, 

268. 

Meredith,  Mr.  George,  68,  188. 
Michelangiolo,  19,  39,  47,  204. 
Mill,  J.  S.,  150  et  seq.,  264. 
Millais,  117,  212. 
Milton,  161. 
Modern   Painters,  vol.  i.,   9  et 

seq.;  vol.  ii.,  37  etseq.;  vol. 

iii.,  46  et  seq.  ;  vol.  iv.,  58  et 

seq. ;  vol.  v.,  64  et  seq. 
Mornings  in  Florence,  247. 

Northcote,  James,  I. 

Norton,  Professor4  Charles  E.,  8, 

279. 

Olive,  the  Crown  of  Wild,  171. 
On  the  Old  Road,  273. 

Paths,  The  Two,  133. 
Patmore,  Coventry,  5,  97,  127. 
Perspective,  Elements  of,  128. 
Pisano,  Giovanni,  228,  232. 
Pisano,  Nicola,  247. 
Pleasures  of  England,  The,  273. 
Political  Economy  of  Art,  The, 
129. 

Poussin,  Caspar,  10,  15,  p6,  28, 

7*. 

Poussin,  Nicolo,  68. 

Praterita,  273. 

Pre-RaphaelitismR.\i'-k\n\  pam- 
phlet on,  117,  192. 

Pre-Kaphaelitum,The  Three  Col- 
ours of,  1 20,  257. 

Proserpina,  233,  240. 


Queen  of  the  Air,  The,  181. 

Raphael,  13,  39,  91. 
Reade,  Charles,  267. 
Rembrandt,  21,  48. 
Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  13, 46, 77, 

104,  187,  212. 
Ricardo,  151. 
Road,  On  the  Old,  273. 
Roberts,  David,  277. 
Rogers,  Samuel,  5. 
Rosa,  Salvator,  10,  II,  14,  15, 

26,  71. 

Rossetti,  127. 
Rubens,  19,  29,  66,  104. 

Scott,  Sir  W.,  5,  53,  56,  127, 

233,  270. 

Sesame  and  Lilies,  158,  176. 
Seven   Lamps  of  Architecture, 

The,  79  et  seq. 
Severn,  Mrs.  Arthur,  6. 
Shakespeare,  207. 
Shelley,  127. 
Slade,  Felix,  6. 
Smith,  Sydney,  278. 
Spenser,  165. 
Stewart,  Dugald,  40. 
St.  George's  Guild,  260,  261. 
St.  Mark's  Rest,  219. 
Stones  of  Venice,  The,  98  et  seq. 
Swift,  Jonathan,  159. 

Teniers,  15. 

Tennyson,  127. 

Thackeray,  156,  270. 

Three  Colours  of  l\e-Raphaeli- 

tism.  The,  I2O,  257. 
Time  and  Tide  by    Weare  ana 

Tyne,  175. 
Tintoret,  76. 

Titian,  13,  57,  65,  63,  76,  137. 
Tolstoi,  260. 
Turner,  John,  8,  9,  II,    17,  20, 

22  et  seq.,  27,  29  et  seq.,  46, 

55,  60,   68,   74,  75,76,  119, 

167,  195,  233,  273. 
Two  Paths,  The,  133. 


INDEX 


291 


Tyndall,    Professor,    iSl,    236, 
238. 

Unto  This  Last,  145. 

Val  D'Arno,  225. 
Vandyck,  66. 
Velasquez,  73. 


Venice,  The  Stones  of,  98  et  seq. 
Veronese,  Paul,  47,  48, 76,  104. 

Weare  and  Tyne,     Time    and 

Tide  by,  175. 

Wild  Olive,  The  Crown  of,ijl. 
Wordsworth,  127. 


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